The Spiritual Discipline of Subtraction
by Gary Henry
WordPoints.com
"Moses' father-in-law said to him, 'The thing that you do is not good. Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you'" (Exodus 18:17-18).
In these days of extreme busyness, the very thought of deleting anything from our lives is difficult. Like a kid in a candy store, we want it all. I don’t know what Moses’ initial response was to his father-in-law’s suggestion that he was trying to do too much, but eventually he saw the wisdom in it. For most of us, that’s a bitter pill to swallow — and very often, it’s our pride that makes it bitter.
Sometimes the things we need to subtract are simply wrong. They have no redeeming qualities and are nothing but hindrances. If so, the scriptural admonition is clear: “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us” (Hebrews 12:1).
At other times, however, we are like Moses. What we are doing may be good, but for us it is “too much.” Perhaps it would be humanly possible to squeeze it in, but our spiritual vitality and depth would suffer. If we kept doing that much, we might eventually ruin the gifts God intended us to use in His work, harm people dear to us, and perhaps even wreck our relationship with God Himself.
As a writer, I struggle every day with what to put in and what to leave out. As I write this page, my pride has had a hard time admitting that the world will survive without hearing everything I know about this topic! But the point is serious: “clutter” is not merely a household problem. It is a spiritual problem. Anything we cannot let go of is an idol that will destroy us. In spiritual “mathematics,” we are often better at addition — taking on more — than at subtraction — relinquishing what would be best for us to forgo.
Artists also know the value of leaving things out. If something in a painting needs to be emphasized, the worst thing an artist can do is surround it with so many interesting details that they detract from its impact. Our lives work the same way. The surest way to say nothing is to try to say everything, and the surest way to squander our lives is to try to do everything. Knowing this, the devil tempts us to believe there is always room for one more “good work” — and the result is not the advance of God’s kingdom but spiritually weaker Christians.
"Efficiency is enhanced not by what we accomplish but more often by what we relinquish" (Charles R. Swindoll).
