Christian Minimalism

Don’t Go Back to the Way Things Were

In the United States, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit our shores, the future looks bright. Events are being scheduled, businesses are opening back up, more and more people are getting vaccinated, and transmission of the disease is finally dropping.

If you’re like most humans who just lived through a global pandemic, you’re probably more than ready to get some “normal” back into your everyday life. This is a typical reaction– living in fear, worry, and isolation has taken its toll.

Once the things around us start to look like our previous lives, it will be easy to fall back into how we lived previously. But, to put it bluntly, how we lived before wasn’t so great.

How We Lived Before

It may be difficult to remember since 2019 feels like it was 100 years ago, but take a trip with me down memory lane. Before the pandemic:

In short, people in the U.S. tended to be overworked, in debt, living in bigger and bigger houses to hold more and more stuff, resorting to off-site storage when their stuff didn’t even fit in that bigger house, and watching certain folks get richer while the rest get poorer. We were living in a dystopian world brought into being by Americans literally buying into what consumer culture is selling us.

Don’t Get Sucked Back In

With everything opening back up, it’s going to be very easy to go back to the way things were. It feels comfortable and familiar, and it can be more difficult to turn around and live a different way.

But we need to remember that the way things were was not actually good. As a country, we have not been focused on what matters most. Instead, we have been living on a consumer culture treadmill that keeps us constantly dissatisfied and unhappy.

Here is the good news: we can repent and change our ways, with God’s help. “Repent” in the original Greek in the New Testament, metanoia, denotes a “turning around,” a change in heart and behavior. It means turning and going in a different direction than one was moving before. Jesus helps us in this turning around and offers us newness of life:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

2 Corinthians 5:17

We have a unique opportunity coming out of the pandemic to turn around and go in a different direction. We have a clean slate. We do not have to go back to the way things were. We can choose differently. We can choose:

  • Rest, renewal, and Sabbath time
  • Intentional buying and consumption
  • Focusing on what’s most important rather than the accumulation of material possessions, wealth, fame, or success
  • Working to narrow the income gap between rich and poor, advocating for better wages and working environments
  • Keeping our lives free of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual clutter

Jesus offers us newness every day; we are invited to turn around and take a different path than the path we were on before. How can you take this clean slate opportunity to turn around, simplify, and really focus on what matters most?

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About 
Becca Ehrlich, AKA The Christian Minimalist, is striving to be a Christian minimalist in a consumer society. She currently lives in Upstate New York with her husband Will and their son Theo. You can read more about her story and how her blog came to exist by clicking the website link above.

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