6
When Less Is So Much More
The window of time with Baden at home keeps shrinking despite my longing to prop it open, its gravity threatening to pinch my heart at the end. But adulting’s gotta happen. So we asked Baden to draw up a clothing budget for the year, then doled out a corresponding clothing allowance (plus a little extra for whatever he didn’t anticipate).
When I later suggested he purchase another pair of shoes, imagine the lift of my eyebrows when he responded, “No, thanks.” He shrugged. “Just don’t need ’em. Trying to live simply, ya know?”
I’d think Corinne would live differently, but lately even she has been lobbing garbage bags of used clothes that land with a thwap by the door. She doesn’t like the clutter, the maintenance of keeping sleeves from dangling out of dresser drawers. We set bins in our kids’ rooms, asking the kids to pile them with whatever they’re not using. Sometimes I’m surprised, or maybe even saddened, at what ends up in them because I thought surely they would have loved that Christmas gift or been more excited about that microscope.
But it’s not horrible, I reason with myself, that they understand buyer’s remorse, that they understand the fickle gremlins of human emotion and desire. So I have to talk with my kids about the microscope with its fuzz of dust, the shirt they love-love-loved for about 4.7 weeks. Until they didn’t. For Baden, it means he’s not shelling out for another Nike hoodie anytime soon, since a wayward welding spark from shop class melted a hole in it, and he’s decided he doesn’t like the fit anyway. He’s living a little wiser, I think, and a little simpler.
In his book The Treasure Principle, Randy Alcorn explains, “The more things we own—the greater their total mass—the more they grip us, setting us in orbit around them.”1 We sense this: our hearts and longing tangled up with where our treasure is. Beneath the “treasure” itself, there’s greater treasure we want: acceptance, comfort, and self-value. The holes in our hearts are never truly filled by more stuff, more food, more doing.
But isn’t it ironic we have to fight so hard for a shred of simplicity?
Richard Foster observes,
To attempt to arrange an outward life-style of simplicity without the inward reality leads to deadly legalism.
Simplicity begins in inward focus and unity…Experiencing the inward reality liberates us outwardly. Speech becomes truthful and honest. The lust for status and position is gone because we no longer need status and position. We cease from showy extravagance not on the grounds of being unable to afford it, but on the grounds of principle. Our goods become available to others. We join the experience that Richard E. Byrd, after months alone in the barren Arctic, recorded in his journal, “I am learning…that a man can live profoundly without masses of things.”2
Simplicity is a form of fasting, a way of choosing the contentment God offers us (Philippians 4:12-13). It’s cutting out the cheese puffs portion (that is, a lot of air garnished with some unnaturally nuclear-orange flavoring) of our belongings, our schedule, our talk, and our preoccupations that connive us into thinking we’re nourished, full, and happy.
Permanent Truth
Simplicity and its sibling, fasting, are about finding freedom, joy, an undivided heart, and gut-level satisfaction in lives untethered by excess. We can train our minds and hearts away from our constant appetites and the idea that more equals happiness, comfort, and convenience. It is about quieting the “background noise” that prevents us from hearing God. And it’s about freeing ourselves from the chokehold of materialism, pleasure-seeking, and anxiety (Luke 8:14).
Fasting is a sweet offering to God of choosing against something we really like or crave for a little while so we can be satisfied by him—our true feast—rather than all the pleasures in our lives. Fasting chooses to snip the ties of habits that control us. It learns to appreciate the Giver more than our gifts.
Pastor Johnathon Bowers believes that gluttony, “America’s most tolerated sin,” is “more about the direction of our loves than it is about the contents of our cupboards.”3 Before living in Uganda, I probably would have told you this didn’t apply to me. John and I were often scraping to care for four kids on a single income. But if simplicity is more about our hearts’ contentment, perhaps the number of zeros in our income is less important. I knew plenty of people in poverty who, like me, struggled with the same issues of greed and trust in possessions. Small quantities can still snare any of us with selfishness, impatience, a lack of surrender.
American Dream or American Lie?
Living overseas and developing cross-cultural friendships, I discovered our cultures each have their own soul holes, their own lies about where fulfillment can be realized. Each has some version of “If you______, your life will sing.” The amassing of wealth and possessions seems to be as American as apple pie. We live in a state of superabundance, only occasionally peering out on the way 80 percent of the world lives in poverty.
Yes, our wealth propels us toward greater comfort, greater self-actualization, and the ability to change our circumstances. The rest of the world generally finds this enviable, to say the least. But our stuff and schedules and isolating cultural noise can sate us to the point of forgetting that our true hunger lies much deeper. There’s only one Bread that satisfies.
Perhaps that’s why many celebrities who’ve reached the pinnacle of the American dream carry terrifyingly high divorce and suicide rates. At the top of this ladder, there’s nothing fulfilling. Those the most full of our society’s prime fare are still startlingly famished.
But while I like to think I’m clear-eyed about the emptiness of worldly gain, sometimes my view of God’s favor—of being “#blessed”—can be very prescriptive. Sometimes it’s a thinly veiled version of the American dream.
Let’s look at how the Bible describes God’s favor. Gabriel, for example, described Mary as “highly favored! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). From the overview of this “highly favored” woman’s life, maybe we’d arch our eyebrows.
You, an unwed mother, will live in the shame of your community. You will flee the country to avoid your son’s intended infanticide, but your friends won’t make it out. Your son will die of the sickest form of capital punishment. But not before you’ve wondered if he’s gone off the deep end. Oh, and you will live in poverty, as will your son. Your cousin’s son will also be executed unjustly, and another one of your sons will also be tortured to death.
Mary’s blessed life was also pierced.
Yes, God’s favor often shows up in the form of a needed vehicle or a lovely home or the shower drain suddenly clearing so you don’t have to call the plumber.
Sometimes, it doesn’t. Sometimes, as Jesus reminds us in the story of the rich young ruler, our prosperity stands between us and the only thing that matters. It’s possible for any one of us to gain the whole world, yet lose our soul (Mark 8:36). This is also shown in verses like “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15), or “You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:24).
Some of the most contented people I’ve met have been some of the poorest on this planet. I tell you this to illustrate two pearls that Africa has folded into my palms with her own mahogany-colored hands: the gift—the sheer joy—of simplicity, with a side of global and historical perspective.
I will never come close to the ability of so many Africans to survive on so little. My dear friend—following the death of both parents from AIDS and subsequently being thrown out by her stepmom—put her four brothers and sisters through school by working in terrible conditions…and then decided to adopt twins she found on a pile of trash. She could outfast and outlast me in hardship any day of the week. But living with less left my heart leaner and more sinewy. It slowly sliced off the fat I’d brought with me: “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1).
My family and I are still working out what this means in America. We decided to purchase a smaller home with less storage so we’d have to purge and streamline our spaces. That means my three boys share a room. Corinne’s doubles as a guest room. Sometimes it means less space to host. But overall, we like it.
Simplicity for us can also mean whittling down our meals to one or two courses or consuming less meat—like the rest of the world. It could mean simpler gift-giving and a lot of concerted effort toward gratitude. It sometimes means looking the other way when there’s a killer sale on something I don’t need. (The community garage sale is my kryptonite.) It means constant purging, seeing if we can do without, fixing rather than buying new, and restricting our budget to buy less than we might afford. Yet, whatever form “less” takes, it’s almost always more.
Fasting
One form of less is fasting. It’s hard enough for us as adults to get the idea behind fasting, so it may be hard to imagine asking it of our kids. I also sometimes laugh that fasting makes me more sinful: sniping at the kids, my malnourished capacity for obstacles reduced to that of a two-year-old.
But I like how John Piper approaches fasting: It is about demonstrating a hunger for God.4 It’s like saying, God, I want you this much. I recognize I don’t live on food alone.
God made life’s pleasures as good gifts. First Timothy 4:4 tells us, “Everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.” But God never meant those gifts to satisfy us, to edge out our hunger for him. Fasting helps us step away from temporary satisfactions so we can spend time thinking of him and praying more.
Earlier in this book, I mentioned my kids haven’t engaged in all the ideas of this book—and this is an example. With our particular kids and family composition, we’ve focused more on simplicity than fasting. (For one thing, because blood sugar levels have a direct correlation to my own kids’ behavior, this seems to fall into the category of “to obey is better than sacrifice” [1 Samuel 15:22].) So you could say we’ve stuck to the training wheels of this discipline—all-family media fasts, fasting from phones, eating beans and rice for a night, and intentionally going without items.
I like the disciplines of simplicity and fasting as a family to be driven by my kids’ engagement so they have ownership. That way, the hard moments aren’t seen as “parents and God versus Me.” Explain that fasting and simplicity are about training ourselves to hunger for what really matters—for the greater reward of appetites steered toward what we can’t see. God is our true feast. More than about what we’re giving up, fasting and simplicity align with other themes in the Bible: We sacrifice now for the joy of what’s later. Jesus did this when he went to the cross for the joy set before him (Hebrews 12:2).
What Fasting Isn’t
Because lack of food can interfere with school, attention, and behavior, my thought is not to expect kids to fast during school days. Summer, school breaks, and weekends work better. If you’re considering inviting your children to fast during school days, it may be best to ease in with fasting from a particular food. Or perhaps you could decide together to fast from the evening meal, then eat a full breakfast before school. Ask your kids when they would like to fast; buy-in and ownership of this are your friends.
Because many people have different notions of fasting, it is important to note what fasting is not.
Fasting is not focused on achievement. It “is a quiet event shared only by two.”5 This is a great time to talk with our kids about self-righteousness and serving God privately. If we quietly think ourselves a better family because we fast, we’re actually worshipping ourselves (see Colossians 2:20-23). Though our kids’ discipline is something to encourage and praise, ultimately, the goal of fasting isn’t their achievement, but enjoyment of and focus on God.
Fasting is not to make God produce something. Pleading with God for something through fasting is biblical (see Esther 4:16; Daniel 9:3-5; 2 Samuel 12:15-17; and Acts 14:23, for starters). Yet this is different from “I fasted, so God should do _____ for me.” That’s a spiritualized form of entitlement and even dependence on our own acts of righteousness (ironically the opposite of the humility and hands-off-ness we’re going for).
Fasting is not an immediate spiritual high. It’s more like starting an exercise program, say the authors of Habits of a Child’s Heart. It takes a while for fasting to feel effective, meaningful.
Meanwhile, in a “fast” for our house, John and I keep filling trash bags with things and lobbing them to the bottom of the stairs. We’re withdrawing items from our schedule, like gorillas removing insects from fur. Less hurry. Less fuss. Less glitz. Less fluff.
More life.
Writing on the Wall: Practical Ideas
For kids who have food issues (food hoarding, tendencies toward eating disorders, etc.), consider saving this skill for a different season in life when their spirituality won’t be unnecessarily tangled in those complexities.
Let go of any fear-parenting that might drive you to be better, do better, or look better, and pick one or two activities that are right for your family in this season.
Simplify your meals.
Aim for meals with fewer courses, fewer dishes, less time. I come from generations of people who enjoy large, happy meals together, which has shown me the value of the family table and the true fellowship of breaking bread. But for my family, sometimes big meals have been just…more. (The Mennonite cookbook More-with-Less reminds me I can make simpler recipes that consume less of the world’s resources.) John has asked for fewer hot breakfasts for our kids—and fewer dishes and less chaos and hurry from me in the mornings. I’m trying to strike a balance between creating a sense of home and a prepared place—as a taste of what God does for us; see John 14:2—with actual presence with my kids.
Give up sugar, snacks, or dessert one day a week.
God, instead, is your treat. You might sing songs at the end of dinner. You can then work up to a span of several days or even weeks.
Relentlessly streamline chaos.
Turn off the TV or music in the car, during meals, or while you’re milling around the house; plan the TV shows you will watch, and turn off the TV the rest of the time. Get a firm rein on kids’ screen time. Plan your grocery list, and “fast” from buying tempting little extras. (Do we need five kinds of salad dressing?)
Reduce extracurricular activities.
Maybe this looks like one activity per child or even fewer programmed church activities. Help kids adapt to the pace of a “three mile an hour God”6 by simplifying your family calendar—especially in prep for Sunday worship, but throughout the week too. Create glorious white space on the calendar, creating time for kids to think or run around outside; to relax together without anything on the calendar; to wedge in time for childhood (and adulthood) joy.
Organize your cupboards and the fridge.
Did you know Americans discard up to 40 percent of their food? Our disorganization led to things like having more than one container open of the same food and buying more when forgetting we’d already purchased something. Getting the kids on board, we set a goal to reduce our grocery budget by ten percent. A compost bucket increases our awareness of wasted food. We’re eating on smaller plates too, which means smaller servings. Cleaner cupboards and more essential food make me feel like I can fill my lungs all the way again.
Put off gratification.
Delay your online order or grocery shopping. Live off what you have. Shop from your pantry, creating meals from what you have rather than those that will require buying more ingredients.
Talk with your kids about one thing they could give up for a period of time.
Possibilities could include meat, social media, makeup, TV, buying something for self, complaining. Challenge them one step beyond what’s easy for them. The idea is not to offer sacrifices that cost us nothing (2 Samuel 24:24) but to be a cheerful giver who doesn’t give out of obligation (2 Corinthians 9:6-7).
Simplify family wardrobes.
Set a large plastic bin in a child’s room. Ask them to fill it with as many unneeded toys and clothes as they can. Or have a slim-down-your-room contest between kids. This discipline can be a form of both simplicity and fasting. Here are a few tips:
•Operate by the “one in, one out” principle. If kids acquire new clothing, consider asking them to give an equal amount away.
•Give away what’s not an “A.” Is it at the top of the class in quality, ageappropriateness, fit (yes, now), versatility, style, color, preference, and maintenance?
•If you haven’t worn it in a year, you probably don’t need it.
•More than one type of some items—with exceptions like shirts, socks, underwear, and jeans—is probably more than needed.
•Keep donation bags in your closets for constant weeding out.
Help your kids keep their commitments to God.
If your family is fasting from food, encourage them with a note card on the fridge or TV (“So proud of you. Keep it up!”) or a text (“Just a reminder that six hours are left in our meat fast. Keep going! Almost there! [insert Bible verse] Proud of you for choosing this for God.”).
Consider weaning yourself off caffeine.
Second Peter reminds us that “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them” (2:19)—and you might like life untethered from Must. Have. Coffee. (If your doctor approves, green tea or a vitamin B supplement may provide less addictive energy boosts on sleepy days.)
Fresh Ink: Resources for Vibrant Faith
Simplicity is countercultural enough that it may require some adult books to help you alter your own family’s subculture.
•Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World: How One Family Learned That Saying No Can Lead to Life’s Biggest Yes is chock-full of ways to alter kids’ perspective and get them excited about serving. And if your family wants to fast from comfort and move toward advocating for justice, author Kristen Welch has posted “100+ Ways for Your Family to Make a Difference” on her blog.
•Pastor John Mark Comer’s The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World offers wise advice on a simpler, slower pace of life for a family, starting with you.
•Consider sponsoring a child as a family—and becoming his or her pen pal—through Lahash.org or Compassion.com. Compassion also publishes their own kids’ magazine.
•The children’s book One Potato, Two Potato by Cynthia DeFelice teaches valuable contentment.
•Together, watch movies like Queen of Katwe or The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind to glimpse the lives of characters your kids’ age who live in poverty.
•Find 20 ideas to speak the “love language” of gift-giving without doing it more elaborately at janelbreitenstein.com/permanentmarkers/simplicity. I’ve also posted my closest Ugandan friend Olivia’s smash-hit beans and rice recipe for our family.
True Colors: Discussion Questions for Kids
Up the ante by having these conversations after watching kids’ videos on Compassion.com, seeing a movie like Queen of Katwe or The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, or taking your kids with you to serve in a poorer area of town.
•Sometimes activities or stuff or food gets in the way of our remembering that none of those things satisfy us inside. What’s one thing you would be willing to give up for a while, or maybe once a week, to remind you that we don’t need those things to be satisfied? (Give your kids a few ideas, and tell them what you personally are giving up.)
•What’s something you make a little too important sometimes? (Video games? Movie night? Your phone?) What could it look like to step away from that for a while?
•Have you ever become stronger because of something you’ve done without?
•Why do you think Jesus fasted for 40 days before he began his ministry? Do you think this made him stronger or weaker for his temptation by Satan?
Think Ink: Contemplative Questions for Parents
•What areas of your family’s lives feel harried?
•Do the pace and priorities of your life accurately express your desired values?
•What systems could you put in place to keep your schedule serving you and promoting peace and presence, rather than the opposite?
•How could you fast from your constant “yes” to the opportunities before you? What values do you—yourself and as a family—want to determine your family’s schedule, rather than the other way around? What would it look like to create margin, emotional energy, and a culture of rest and essentialism in your home, to “ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life”?7
•What behavior could you fast from? God tells the Israelites,
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? (Isaiah 58:6-7).
Prayer of the Dependent Parent
Lord, you’ve said that where my treasure is, my heart is (Matthew 6:21). What do you want to reveal about where my heart is?
It’s hard to discern your values outside of what my culture values, or even what Christian culture values. The pressure to present ourselves a certain way, to spend my time in certain ways, to prove and endlessly labor, is so pervasive.
Create in my family a deep satisfaction in you, not in what we have. Don’t let our family reduce following you to prosperity or receiving the life of our dreams or reduce you to a divine waiter. You are our wealth, our portion, our inheritance (Psalm 16:5; Lamentations 3:24). Let us honor you in our times of both plenty and want (Philippians 4:12-13). Unhitch my pride from what we have or don’t have, do or don’t do.
Reveal ways you would like to set my family free from what chokes us. What is it you want to cut us free from? What idols consume my attention and love, and that of my kids? Give me wisdom to know how to open our grasp.