Many of us are longing to get back to a "simpler lifestyle." For some this means getting rid of the excess activities that keep us running to and fro. For others it means returning to a life that is "closer to the soil," more agrarian, less dependent on technology. For still others it means learning to re-focus on the most important things, the foundational values of faith, family and community.

What is it that we are looking for in this pursuit of the "simple"? What is it that we are trying to escape? Can we justify the "simple lifestyle"—however we define it—by any biblical principles? Or are we just alumni of the '60's school of discontent and general counterculturalism?

I believe the "simplicity" movement is wholesome for several reasons.

First, it generally involves a desire to reclaim responsibility for your own life. Certainly the choice to homeschool your children is a quantum leap in terms of personal responsibility. Likewise with the all-out homesteader who chooses to produce most of his own food. The same can be said of the father who curtails the hyper-involvement of his kids in "activities" in order to develop stronger bonds among the family by spending more time together. So, too, the man who studies natural health remedies and gets second opinions in order to reclaim oversight of his family’s health.

Being made in God’s image to take dominion over creation, we have a calling to be stewards, to take responsibility in many areas. Families have become irresponsible, even as they have turned to government to meet more and more of their needs. Government has become an idol.

Passing off responsibility to others is a hallmark of our spiritually sick culture. Reclaiming it is a positive sign.

Second, the desire for a simpler lifestyle generally means de-institutionalizing your life and returning to the primacy of relationships. An "institution" (as we're using the word here) is a man-made structure that tends to consume the individual even while ostensibly serving him. Schools are institutions that are supposed to educate children, but too often children become cogs in the machine. There are classrooms, computers, shiny textbooks and lots of activity—but the individual person is lost in the shuffle, and the goal of education is unmet.

One of the most destructive institutions in our society is the one that pretends to the honor of being the most compassionate: government welfare. Here we see the impossibility of bureaucracy replacing personal, face-to-face compassion with accountability. A "simpler lifestyle" will mean renouncing dependence on the state for those things which family and church are meant to provide: care for the sick, the disabled, the elderly.

Unfortunately, de-institutionalizing one’s life may also mean avoiding the "institutional church" of our day. Buildings, programs, committees, frenetic activity—these hallmarks of the "church" today are counter to the very spirit of the church. The church is an organism, a body, a family. Relationships are primary. Fellowship with God creates fellowship with one another. The simple, intimate, accountable relationships God intends among Christians rarely survive the quest for a "super-church."

De-institutionalizing your life means rediscovering relationships. We were made to know and love God, and to know and love one another. People have a way of disappearing in institutions.

Third, the pursuit of the simple lifestyle is a pursuit of rest, and rest is a Christian virtue and blessing. Obviously here we are not speaking of leisure and sleep. Taking responsibility for your life and re-focusing on relationships can be a tiring process! We are thinking rather of the rest of heart and soul that can accompany even arduous physical labor.

Jesus promised rest for those who come to him. He promised a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light. A life yoked to the Lord is one of quiet and calm of spirit. Recognizing his supremacy, living and working for Him and His priorities—that is rest. Rest describes the life lived in the context of grace.

Modern man knows nothing of rest. Instead of resting in God, he aims to be a god through the work of his hands. But his Babel towers ultimately create confusion and alienation. He aims to be a god in the extension of his labor through technology. But the promise is unfulfilled. There is more to be done after his tools are improved than before.

Hard work is a virtue and technology is a gift, and we should avoid the simplistic definition of simplicity that sees one or the other as bad. But relying on our labors in either form is always stressful and disappointing.

Those of us who seek simplicity seek, simply, to live with a recognition that God is God and we are not. That the meaning of our lives is in Him, His creation, His people. That our job is to do all He calls us to do but leave the results up to Him. That our reward is not what we create for ourselves but His smile of pleasure upon our lives.

We choose the simple lifestyle because it is closer to God’s plan for what it means to be human and to live under grace.