Simpler Days

**Update: This post is the first is my Sunday Series, The Faith Journey. **
Hello Friends! First off I want to thank you for a great first week.  You will notice I have already given A TIPical Day a makeover.  As I continue to learn more about blogging I will be adjusting/tweaking the site.  Thank you to everyone who has offered tips and suggestions!  I so appreciate them. 

Yesterday was an exciting day for our family.  Our Cub Scout Pack had it's annual Blue and Gold Banquet!  The theme was Knights of the Round Table.  What a hoot!  I am almost tearful just thinking of next year's!  Perry will crossover next year into Boy Scouts.  How could he be so big already?  **sniff, sniff**  OK so it is a year away still, so I won't dwell on it.  ;)  Now on to today's topic...

Simpler Days
Have you ever read a book, or watched a movie and thought, "Oh to live in a simpler time!"  A time when one good dress in the closet was enough, and a rag doll was a treasured gift for your daughter.  It seems that our lives these days are so filled with "stuff".  It makes it so easy for us to loose focus on the purpose of our lives.  As a Christian, I believe that the most important purpose of life is to serve Jesus Christ. 

The "stuff" we allow to clutter our lives is also the same "stuff" that keep us from appreciating what blessings the LORD has given us.  I will be honest, I am choosing this as a topic today because I struggle with this.  I have so much I can should be thankful for, but often find myself wanting more.  I want a bigger house, nicer car, better clothes.  I start to take them for granted and forget to be grateful that I actually have these things to begin with!  So many are without, and I pout about wanting more.  I can not serve the LORD if I am constantly coveting what I don't have.  I need to learn contentment.  I need to learn to live as if it were simpler days.

Am I so different from the Isrealites in this?  I may not be building a golden calf, but my dependence on these unneeded items...this "stuff" is the same thing.  It is idolatry.  Regardless of my sin, the LORD does forgive me for my transgressions.  He has washed my sins away with his bloodshed on the cross.  How grateful I am for a Saviour that loves me, flaws and all!

Joshua 24:14-15 (NIV)

¹⁴ “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵ But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”