Today's Devotional

October 18, 2005

 

Subject:  The Simple Life 

2Corinthians 11:3 - "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

Melanie, having just moved from the big city of Dallas to a much more subdued environment in a small suburb just northwest of Houston, is beginning to find out how simple life can really be.  While it might be shocking to find out that all of the stores and most businesses are closed by 5 or 6 p.m. everyday and many don't open on Saturdays, it really does put life in perspective.  One day I went by the county voting office to see an old high school classmate and she was gone to see her teenage daughter play in a softball game.  I began to ask, "does anybody work around here?"  The answer was yes, but I think the focus of work in this small town is altogether different than in the big city.  

 Satan has this great plan to get us thinking about everything but the simple life and that's the life in Christ.  If our focus is on work and getting the next big job or earning the next big dollar, then it's so easy for us to miss out on what God really wants us to be doing.  Our minds get "corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

The small town people's mentality is not to " work for life", but work to " make a living."  I think somewhere along the way, "city-folk" have forgotten that.  Work is not meant to consume us and prevent us from a simple Christ-led, Christ-focused existence, but instead all of our work should indeed support that existence and you don't have to be at the office or job all day to do that.

 

Carlen