Simplify

Monday 8/4/2014 4:44 AM

Yesterday was my thirty-sixth wedding anniversary.  It is amazing to me how quickly the intervening years have passed.  We spent the weekend celebrating with our California kids and grandkids in Palm Springs and had a great time spending time together.  When we were first married I had great plans of having a big house with a nice car and all the amenities of life.  Over the past twenty or so years I have been more intentional in pursuing my relationship with God and my prayer has become more and more like Psalm 25:4-5, “Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths.  Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.”

I believe God has shown me his ways and taught me his paths over the course of the past years and now I find the prayer of Thomas Pettepiece in his book Visions of a World Hungry coming to my lips more frequently.  “Lord, help me choose a simpler life-style that promotes solidarity with the world’s poor, helps me appreciate nature more, affords greater opportunity to work together with my neighbors, reduces my use of limited resources, creates greater inner harmony, save money, allows time for meditation and prayer, incites me to take political and social action.  May all my decisions about my style of life celebrate the joy of life that comes from loving you.”