The Essentials of Simplicity: Letting Go to Gain What Truly Lasts
The following essay is the sixth reflection for our July focus on the spiritual practice of Simplicity. Read more here about our exploration of the spiritual disciplines in 2025 through creative and reflective writing.
I reluctantly returned the six-sided cheese grater, lawn mower, and food processor from our wedding registry. I loved them, but they wouldn’t fit into our 700-square-foot Manhattan apartment. In fact, as newlyweds, it was difficult to determine what aspects of our Texas background would fit into our New York beginnings.
To manage household consumption, we adopted our family mantra early on. The purchase of a new item would require the removal of an existing one. We had no room for excess back then. The hardest part, however, wasn’t agreeing on the principle of simplicity, but rather defining essentials versus non-essentials. While it sounds simple enough, twenty years later and back in Texas, my heart is constantly tempted with the lure of more.
An honest confession—culture has influenced my expectations more than I would like to admit. A bigger closet, greater success, and that dream vacation dangle before me like carrots of desire. As I lie down at night, I always feel that there is more I need to accomplish in a day, or more time I should have spent with each of our four children., This discontent challenges my peace and leaves me exhausted.
Often, my gaze drifts to my bank account or calendar to satisfy these longings for more. Yet I’m constantly conflicted when Scripture teaches that following Jesus means learning to live with less.
In Luke 9, as Jesus gathered His disciples in a special commissioning ceremony, I am struck by what He gave and what He withheld. Before sending out the twelve, Jesus gave them one essential thing—His power. But in verse 3, Jesus charges them to “take nothing for the journey-no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt.” (NIV).
Countless questions fill my mind. What’s wrong with a bag or staff for ease, convenience, and protection? Surely, the disciples needed money for provisions and bread for sustenance, right? And I shudder to think of journeying for days on end without a change of clothes to freshen up.
As we consider essentials and non-essentials, our earthly desires threaten to clutter our spiritual discernment. While I wish it were always as easy as returning a lawn mower or cheese grater, the art of practicing simplicity involves much more at the heart level.
On Jesus’s final days on earth before He is arrested but after His disciples witnessed miracle after miracle, the Son of God circles back to His commissioning words in Luke 22:35. Jesus asks, “When I sent you out with no moneybag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?”
“Nothing,” they replied.
They lacked nothing, even when logical reasoning and earthly provisions felt limited. They lacked nothing, even when their culture told them differently. They lacked nothing, though the future remained unclear. Why? Because God provided the essentials, which were enough.
What good news for us today! As I sit in another season of great unknowns, my heart is tempted to grasp for a deeper understanding. I’m tempted to pursue more earthly provisions to satisfy my desires and ease my burdens. But this passage reminds me that the gain of trusting God as our true provider is worth the cost of having less.
Learning to live with less empowers us to say yes to what God is calling us to with open hands, trusting that the ultimate provision for endurance and sustenance comes from Him. Remembering that He will surely provide the essentials invites us to let go of the non-essentials, with eyes wide open to how He wants to fill the gaps in our lives.
Our time in New York taught me more than simplicity with stuff. It taught us that loosening our grip on the things of this world invites us to cling more tightly to the faithful and lasting provision of our loving Father.
As Jackie Hill Perry says, “There is nothing in your hands that God won’t replace with more of Himself. So let it go. Let it fly. Let it burn. God is better anyway.”
What needs to fly away in this season? What can we release so that we can embrace more simplicity and experience more of God’s power in our lives?
As we journey together on this commissioning, let’s travel lightly. Let’s loosen the weight of our expectations, the business of our schedules, and the hindrances of our hearts. As we do, may we be fully free to cling to the essentials and discover the depths of the “unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8).
And one day, as we gaze at our Savior face to face, we will attest as His devoted disciples that on this faith-filled journey, though at times it felt excruciating, we indeed lacked nothing.
Shawna Sullivan is a writer, speaker, educator. She is passionate about helping women prioritize what matters most in their busy life. Shawna equips others to live faithfully, not perfectly with their finances and time so they can steward their one life well. Connect with her on Substack and Instagram, both @shawnasullivan.
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Sheila Wise Rowe (MEd, Cambridge College) has over thirty years of experience offering counseling and spiritual direction to individuals, couples, leaders, and trauma survivors. Sheila also spent a decade ministering to unhoused and abused women, children, and youth in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she was a lay pastor and taught Christian counseling and trauma-related courses. Sheila is a speaker, trainer, and writer, authoring the award-winning Healing Racial Trauma and Young, Gifted, and Black. She and her husband, Nicholas Rowe, live in Boston, Massachusetts, and coauthored Healing Leadership Trauma.
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Thank you for the opportunity to share. 💗
I really enjoyed this essay and the ways you showed simplicity through the lens of a small apartment, as a metaphor for journeying lightly through our lives.