Less Is More

Of the many, and profoundly valuable, things my wife has taught me over the years one of the greatest is the power of a simple phrase that she has used for as long as I have known her. Less is more. She usually uses this phrase at times when I have wandered into the dangerous world of excess: a long sermon; attempts to smother our house and yard with Christmas lights; an overly ambitious home improvement project; the purchase of life’s necessities (like a boat, a motorcycle, or a double case of Costco peanut butter). At times like these I hear her sweet and melodic voice gently saying, “You know David, less is more.”

Christmas is a good time for prophets like my wife to step up and say “enough is enough”. I’m not exactly sure how it got to be like this. It’s almost like someone has been adding more and more things to Christmas in an attempt to confuse and distract us from it’s real meaning. So for all of the brave and daring prophets who would boldly stand against the tide of ‘more is more’ I have a verse. Every prophet needs a verse, so here it is:

“But you Bethlehem Ephrathah,

though you are least among the clans of Judah,

yet out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel,

whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."

(Micah 5:2)

Don’t miss that first line: “But you Bethlehem, though you are LEAST.” The prophetic lesson from this verse that must be proclaimed to the uninformed masses is this: The truly important things of life are usually wrapped in simplicity. Less is more.

Bethlehem was a small and insignificant village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It was so small and insignificant that in Joshua 15, after the conquest of the Promised Land, when all of the towns and villages of the province of Judah are listed, Bethlehem isn’t even mentioned. Maybe it didn’t even exist at the time. Maybe it was so small that it was really nothing more than a watering hole for animals or a rest stop for travelers.

In fact in the Old Testament the only significant thing about Bethlehem was that David was born there. David, Israel’s greatest human king, comes out of this small and insignificant village. And then in the New Testament, Jesus the Messiah, the world's ultimate divine King, is also born in Bethlehem.

It seems like the things of God are often placed in sharp contrast with the things of this world. The things that God says are insignificant we tend to magnify. And the things that God says are of great and ultimate value we tend to minimize. The greatest things often do come wrapped in simplicity.

From God’s perspective, less is often a better representation of His truth and power.
• God has Gideon reduce his army from 32,000 men down to 300 and then says, “now you are ready to go against the Midianites in battle.”
• David defeats the Philistine giant Goliath with only a sling and 5 smooth stones, 4 of which he doesn’t even use.
• Paul comes to the point of realizing that God can use his own physical infirmity to actually make him a much stronger person.
• Jesus stands before a crowd of 5,000 with one little boy’s lunch and manages to use it to feed them all.

From God’s perspective less is often more. In fact from God’s perspective less is often preferable because God usually uses small and insignificant things to demonstrate His power. When we are seeking to live our lives around the concept of less we will be able to see our own deep need for Him more clearly. Simplifying our lives enables us to reduce things down to the bare essentials and be content with that.

Now, I’m not talking about giving away everything you have and living in a garage somewhere. What I’m talking about has more to do with your state of mind than with your state of wealth. You can simplify your life whether you are rich or poor, employed or unemployed, married or single, young or old, because simplicity begins as a condition of the heart. Only from that starting point can you go on to make choices about the condition of your life. James 4:10 tells us to, “Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.” Here’s another verse you prophets can use to illustrate that in God’s eyes less is more.

So, are you moving toward less this Christmas or are you moving toward more. I encourage you to begin thinking more in terms of less. Think simpler. Try to shrink your view of Christmas down to what matters most. It’s not the shopping, or the decorations, or the eating, or cramming as many social events into the month as you can. It’s about a baby, who’s poor and insignificant parents travelled to a small and insignificant village so that God could come to earth in the simplest and lowliest of means. And so it is for our great and eternal blessing that at that time and in that place less really became so much more.