I don’t know about you, but I find myself caught in this tug-o-war this time of year. There is a push to do all the things, make all the memories, and this equally loud cry to pull back, pare down, simplify and trim. Where do maximizing and minimalism meet? If you are wondering, you’re not alone.
The advent devotional I planned to read this year showed up late. And yet, somehow, right on time. That sentence should have a familiar ring to it this time of year. The long waiting, the silence, the perfect arrival. I don’t want to miss any of the small ways to see and remember this year, friend.
So I cracked open the late, but perfectly timed, devotion this morning and read these words.
Jesus knew he had come not just to preach the gospel of sacrifice, but also to be that sacrifice, yet he was perfectly willing.
And this is one reason I chose a Paul Tripp devotional this year. His simple sentences are stunningly convicting.
I let the words settle. Preach sacrifice. Be sacrifice. Perfectly willing.
Often times I take in the gospel story in bits and pieces. Maybe it’s the magnitude of it all – a virgin birth, the Son of God in humble human skin, angels, shepherds, wise men, years of humanity, growing, temptation, miracles, leading, teaching, betrayal, heartbreak, tears of blood, death and life. It’s just so much to wrap my finite brain around.
And then the devotion reminds me, in it all, through it all, He was perfectly willing. My mind stops shorts here, like an error code on a calculator. I simply cannot compute.
I’ve done a few hard things in my life, I think. I’ve nibbled the edges of sacrifice. Comparatively, I probably rank low, but I know better than to play those comparison games. If I sift through what I know, what I’ve seen, I can form a low level understanding of sacrifice.
But that perfectly willing part makes me incredibly uncomfortable.
I wash clothes and pick up messes, mostly willing, most of the time.
Every day I cook meals and make my bed, willing much of the time.
I teach and I learn and I try new things with varying degrees of willingness, more so when it benefits me. But to swim in an ocean of sacrifice, sacrifice that is the most humbling, the most painful, the most lonely and to be perfectly willing is something I have never even come close to knowing.
Maximizing vs. Minimalism
This time of year I weigh maximizing and minimalism carefully. I’m a girl who likes to do all the things. Left to my own devices I can run life ragged, empty. Maturity (and a wise husband) has helped me steer that fervor a little more wisely over the years, but sometimes I still become this pendulum that swings heavy one direction or the other.
Plus minimalism is trendy now, right?
Okay, let’s not do all the things. Not go all the places. Less is more. I can do this!
But in seeking balance, in finding a good fit for our families – it’s also easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. When we drink in the story in bits and pieces, the fragments don’t always resound of the greater truth. Paul Tripp puts it this way:
We have tended to reduce the active field of our concern down to the tiny confines of our wants, our needs, our plans, our satisfaction, and our happiness. (Come Let Us Adore Him)
Ouch.
What if we don’t need to join either camp, maximizing or minimizing? What if our pursuit of such too often makes everything all about…us? We strategize and maneuver for picture perfect outcomes and yet the real work has already been done. With perfectly willingness, done.
In this season, this year, this life, we live to bring glory to God – with our schedules and our homes, in our relationships and at our Christmas parties, with our decor and our meals and gifting and receiving it all. These aren’t bits and pieces, this is all of it. Our mission plain and simple is to glorify Him. Honor Him.
The challenge is not to minimize or maximize any of it. But rather to see Him here, to follow Him here, to honor Him here, to obey Him here.
Rather than looking for a camp to join, let’s look to a God to follow. Let’s look to a God who put skin on, who gets real work and real relationship and the nuances and challenges of all of it.
What if we stepped away from the distraction of less and more, a tug-o-war than grounds our eyes, and instead used that energy to lift our chins and focus on the only One who has ever been perfectly willing to meet us and lead us, right where we are?
God, help me see you here. Help me stand in awe of the work you have done, be captivated by your perfect willingness here. You entered a broken world and continue to enter broken hearts like mine. Fill the spaces, Jesus. All the peace and order I seek, let it be You.
Giving me a heart that is willing, not for all that I see, but for what You see. Make me willing to obey, willing to love, willing to engage and serve and be vulnerable that You may be glorified. Thank you for your perfect willingness, a willingness that I can’t even fathom but one that makes me want to know you even more. I am so grateful. In Jesus name, Amen.
