Many of you have heard my story of how a trip to Jamestown in Virginia transformed much of my thinking a few years ago.  It was then that I realized how it is puzzling to me that we have so many modern conveniences today, yet our society is busier than ever!

I have always been a “Little House on the Prairie Girl” at heart. I have often felt trapped in the wrong time period. {although I am quite certain I could never have handled the freezing winters, and true hardship of the prairie}  Anyway, it crosses my mind so often how those pioneers worked so hard for everything they had. Their whole life was spent on survival.

Today we do very little each day for the purposes of survival. We are more focused on comfort-on what we want rather than what we need.  We have luxuries that we often feel we deserve.

Truth is, as soon we stray away from the fight for survival we become complacent. We forget we never more than one breath away from the other side. Life gets comfortable and pretty soon we feel like we need so much.

As I stood in an 18th-century farmhouse at Jamestown a few summers back, I was struck by how little “stuff” was in the home. There was one room, with a loft for sleeping (a luxury at the time.)  A hook for clothes-which held all the clothes for a family of SIX.  A few pots and pans. A dish and cup for each person.

I imagined the lady of the house cooking all day (not because she wanted to try out the latest recipes from Pinterest, or try a gourmet meal) but cooking what the family had on hand with the intent of survival.  Cooking was an all-day affair because it had to be, not because she wanted it to be.

The laundry was also hard work.  Taking it down to the creek, scrubbing and wringing and drying.  I know today, I do dozens of loads of laundry a week and complain about it never ending. Yet I have a washer and dryer. How is this so? Because we have SO many clothes, and because we wouldn’t think of wearing them all week without washing. Perspective.

How are we so busy yet we have so much? What would those pioneers think of us? We have every modern convenience, yet we are running around more busy than any other time in history?

Is it really easier?

We have all the information we need at our fingertips via the internet, we have cars, we have dishwashers, washing machines, etc.  This is all supposed to make life easy!

What would it be like if we lived in a tiny home like that 18th-century farmhouse, but with the washer, dryer, dishwasher, phone, and internet? We would have much less to take care of.  We wouldn’t need to wash at the creek, we could wash those few sets of clothes once a week and be done.
We would have so much time.

Time for all of those things we say we have no time for. Devotions, Bible study, games with the kids, family discussions, playing!!

Time. Time we say we don’t have, but yet I feel we have created our own lack of time. If we only lived with what we needed, we would have so much time.

Just things to think about today. Life is short. We have been given much. Let’s be good stewards of what we have and not waste it on the things that don’t matter. 

Live simply. Live well. Live for Him.

(I’ll be sharing a podcast episode this week on this topic…look for it Friday!)