Laura Alfonzo passed this excerpt from Leadership magazine my way. It paints a very realistic picture of what the majority of people in the world live with and without. Just imagine if this were your life. Here are nine drastic steps you and I would have to take to be able to truly relate to the rest of the world. We’re so very blessed!

1. Take out the furniture: leave a few old blankets, a kitchen table, maybe a wooden chair. You’ve never had a bed, remember?
2. Throw out your clothes. Each person in the family may keep the oldest suit or dress, a shirt or blouse. The head of the family has the only pair of shoes.
3. All kitchen appliances have vanished. Keep a box of matches, a small bag of flour, some sugar and salt, a handful of onions, a dish of dried beans. Rescue the moldy potatoes from the garbage can: those are tonight’s meal.
4. Dismantle the bathroom, shut off the running water, take out the wiring and the lights and everything that runs by electricity.
5. Take away the house and move the family into the tool shed.
6. No more postman, fireman, government services. The two-classroom school is three miles away, but only two of your seven children attend anyway, and they walk.
7. Throw out your bankbooks, stock certificates, pension plans, insurance policies. You now have a cash hoard of $5.
8. Get out and start cultivating your three acres. Try hard to raise $300 in cash crops because your landlord wants one-third and your moneylender 10 percent.
9. Find some way for your children to bring in a little extra money so you have something to eat most days. But it won’t be enough to keep bodies healthy—so lop off 25 to 30 years of life.

It’s an amazing list, isn’t it? I don’t share it to make you feel bad, but to be thankful for ALL we have in Christ Jesus and in America. The interesting thing to me is that many people with so very little in worldly goods, have great joy in the simple things.

I hope you can join us this Sunday as we look at the topic of “The Secret of a Satisfying Life” from Philippians 4. Hint… it has to do with contentment!

Praise God for ALL he is teaching us at First Church these days!

Yours in Christ,
Mark

P.S. We begin our Wednesday Night Study, Simple Revolution, on 09-09-09. Get your copy of the book Simple Church this Sunday and sign up to be a part of this challenging and stretching study!