March 11, 2012 Simplicity

Eph. 4: 28 Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with this hands that he may have something to give him who has need.

 I don’t know how many times I have skimmed over this verse assuming it had little to offer me since I am not a thief, or at least those were my thoughts.  I have been working my way through a little book called Simplifying the Soul: Lenten Practices to Renew Your Spirit  by Paula Huston, and the verse calls me to task now.

I can hear you thinking, not more about Lent, but this book is so practical, easy to understand and practice, and for me, terribly convicting.  Each chapter has a different application of a Lenten Practice, something very easy to do, and very different each day. Because the book is so simple and quick to read, I have been reading a week’s worth each night, the same week’s worth each week.

Consequently, I have had time to think through the challenges each week. Among the challenges were to live on a very limited diet –rice and beans – for one day. Another was to wear your oldest clothes for a full day, and a third was to sleep on the floor for one night. The point was not to suffer, but to identify with the suffering.

 All of that brings me back to the verse for today: I am not so sure that Paul meant it solely for thieves. Perhaps it was meant also for those of us who are unknowingly thieves, stealing from the poor by having so much, so much above what we need, and doing so thoughtlessly, ignorantly. It is not that I think we are to live like Francis of Assissi  or Poor Clare or others of our forbearers in the faith who were intentional about living it poverty. I think God loves to bless us, to entrust us with wealth, but I think also we forget our bounty is a trust – to be shared.

 Just how I am going to work all of this out in my life practically, I do not know, but I do know I do not want to live as a thief.