The other morning, I was pulling out of my garage, backing up into the road, and pushed a simple button to close the garage door. I was imagining how people felt back in the day when garage door openers were invented. For them, suddenly it was simpler to get the garage door open. No more opening the car door, getting out, closing the garage door with the whole weight of your own body, walking back to the car, getting in, and closing the door.
Simply pushed a button.
I do it about every day. While I feel honored and blessed to have a garage, the act of pushing the button is not exactly something I consider delightful every day–especially when the button is being difficult.
One of my main goals in life is simplicity. I like to be efficient and allow myself to spend time rather than waste it. Don’t get me wrong, I love lots of things and keep myself busy. But simplicity is something I aim for. During the Christmas season, I say, “Alexa, turn on the trees,” and my Christmas trees turn on. I do a little work at the beginning of every year to make my work year go more smoothly and I make my own freezer meals for lunches once every 6 to 8 weeks so I don’t have to think hard about lunch on a daily basis. I’m a big fan of working in spurts.
My phone houses our family calendar and I use it to socialize with friends far away; I order clothes and toys and groceries so that I don’t have to spend loads of time shopping in stores.
I’m on a never-ending quest to simplify my life without making myself bored.
Easy is Unattainable
But here’s the thing: No matter how simple we make our lives–no matter how much technology helps me to simplify tasks and things that I love to do, life will never be easy.
Aren’t we all trying to make life easy? Aside from a those people who are gluttons for punishment, I think one thing we Americans try to do is to find the easy life.
How can I make enough money that it won’t be so hard to make ends meet?
Does anyone have any easy meals I can make with almost no prep on weeknights when everything is crazypants?
When will this sports season be over so my kids are just home at night instead of going a million places?
How much longer will this pain make it almost impossible for me to get through my day without losing it?
When will my boss see that I’m working hard and give me that promotion to that well-paid, easier level of work?
When will my toddler get through this terrible stage of fits so we can just enjoy our easy lives together?
And endlessly more
I’d venture to say that just about all of us are asking these types of questions and so many more. We could add loads of questions to this list that show we’re looking for things to be easy–or at least less difficult.
The longer I live, the more I realize that life is not going to just get easy. Not all of it, anyway. Our society becomes more and more complex by the minute. And the more aware we become of everything, the bigger the hard becomes.
Current events present challenging problems that Alexa can’t solve. Raising children is a process so complex that we’d welcome voice control. I wish we could push a button that fixes all our relationship problems.
But let’s remember the hope we have in Jesus.
Philippians 3.20-21 says, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”
We’re playing the long game here. No matter how difficult and complex our lives become here on earth, we can be sure that this isn’t the end game. This is the short game. We’re playing the long game.
In the mean time, we can have hope that the evil, the struggle, the stress that we have in this life will be gone. It will end. And in the mean time, we can rely on Jesus to be everything we depend on. He’s our provider, comforter, healer, lover of our souls, friend, protector, guide, strength, and more.
Live may get simple for some of us. Simple, not easy.