A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

Nowadays, simplicity is a hot topic of exploration. In the USA, our conspicuous consumption has gotten the better of us, and people are interested in downsizing. My own wake-up call came when I told my children’s playmates they weren’t allowed in the garage: “It’s not safe out there!” Too much stuff stacked floor to ceiling and scattered densely along the narrow aisle-ways made for dangerous navigation.

Christians who wish to simplify often turn to Richard Foster’s excellent book, Freedom of Simplicity. One of his most provocative recommendations is this: If you need something, ask God to supply this “daily bread” without your having to buy it. If it comes during a week’s time, thank him. If not, reevaluate, and if you still need it, buy it. This ends impulse buying and reminds us that God is our provider.

When my daughter needed some fabric to complete a requirement for her Girl Scout Silver Award, I took the opportunity to clean out some of my excessive collections of craft supplies that were cluttering our garage. I consolidated several boxes, and ended up with three piles: trash, materials for my daughter, and cross-stitching supplies. Cross-stitching is a structured kind of embroidery I used to enjoy, but no longer find compelling. However, I knew that my husband’s coworker loves the craft, so I asked Keith to deliver the boxful of charts and other items to her. Terry’s reaction astonished us.

In the weeks before I got the bug to clean my garage, Terry had felt God was trying to teach her two things: “to come to Him first for every thing, not just the big things but every single thing as a matter of habit, every time” as well as “to see material possessions the way He does.” One evening while surfing the Internet, Terry  found a cross-stitch chart she really, really liked. But this time she just stopped and prayed, “Lord, I have enough. You have given me everything I need.  I do not need or want any thing more. You are all I need and all I want.  If You want me to have that chart, then I will eventually have it, but I am not going to buy it.”  She was serious about that decision, mentally placing the chart at His feet and going on about her business.

It was several weeks later when Terry received my box and took it home to look through. She says, “My husband and my son must have thought I had completely lost it over in my chair that night, when I turned a chart over and recognized it was the one. I could not stop the tears of joy. How real He is, and how loved can one person be? No one on the planet knew I wanted that chart.”

Along with several thousand other Christians, I spent much of last week in one of America’s most beautiful places, Malibu, California.

I was there for the annual Pepperdine Bible Lectures, a week-long series of classes, talks, singing, meetings and fellowship that is both amazing in its scope and glorious in its setting. There is content, too, but I’ll write about that in another post.

From the cafeteria patio at Pepperdine, I had a more than 200-degree panoramic view of the deep blue Pacific ocean, I was comfortable in shorts every day and every evening, and the skies were constantly clear.

But did that serve to clear my mind or cloud it? Enjoying a warm breakfast while overlooking the ocean is relaxing and inspiring, but does it make for better thinking, or does it create a warped perspective? How much — and how — does where we are impact our worldview?