Smaller Barns

“This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.  And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”  Romans 12:18-19

These verses, part of an excellent sermon this morning from our pulpit, prompted me to reflect on our own 2010 adventure in downsizing. 

My Viking and I agreed long ago, before our children were out of the house, that our retirement years would not include a permanent house in the south, living each day only to bowl, golf, play cribbage, shop or hunt for shells.  Neither could we see ourselves dusting off our hands from childrearing.  We were excitedly anticipating years as grandparents, helping to train the next generation.

Viking man is an orderly man!  When our children were very young he established weekly family meetings which continued for years.  From those early meetings the planning part morphed into a yearly get-away weekend for the two of us, spent casting a vision for five years ahead.  Eventually, those evolved into the development of 10 year goals. 

Our 30’s, 40’s and 50’s included many family, spiritual, career, and life enriching goals.  However, for years we just couldn’t envision our 60’s, not until they were upon us!  Then it became clear to us, our 60’s would be years of downsizing, letting go and instead of setting goals we would listen more to the Spirit about direction for our lives.  Loud and clear to us was a vision to live simply, in preparation for whatever lay ahead.

Moving into a smaller, more manageable house was one big item on this list and we assumed it would be in our later 60’s rather than earlier.  But, when a cute little ranch went on the market we knew it was meant for us, and so began the process of downsizing from our turn-of-the-century Four Square, into a two bedroom with no basement and a little patch of grass to mow.

God's provision of a new, smaller home!

Downsizing was not easy!  I never foresaw this move as one of the most difficult times in our 40 years of marriage.  But, once we began to give things away and hire an estate sale planner, the excitement grew with thoughts of living with less stuff and less responsibility for our things.

During this change in our life, one Sunday God brought a guest preacher to stand in our pulpit, a missionary to Egypt.  His topic was living with less.  I still remember one point so clearly, “All the stuff we have now is ‘kindling’, and it will be here today and eventually burned up.”  From that moment on, when stumped on deciding what to let go of, we would ask each other, “This is ‘kindling’, and can we let it go now or later?”

Living with less feels so good!  But God had another lesson for us yesterday.  We invited a couple over for breakfast; their life story caused us to wonder how much less we could really live on!  These new friends, our age, had given up their house and almost all earthly possessions.  Their story is one of truly living by Faith, moment by moment.  The hours spent with them were an encouragement to seek God and “soak” in His love.  They were a picture of faith-filled contentment found in Christ alone, not trusting in the things of this world. 

What a blessing to see this brother and sister ‘rich toward God’, not storing up things for themselves.  

 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:20-21