I imagine Adam and Eve strolling through Eden, enjoying God’s Presence and the sights and sounds and scents of a newly planted garden. Life was simple. Work, eat, sleep, and commune with each other and with God. Real pleasure. The dawn of life. 

In my world and likely in yours too, we are constantly bombarded with the drama of sin,  noise, stench, and confusion on every hand. Our relationships are now imperfect. We stumble as we walk with God. Some pleasant experiences, but much difficulty mixed with them. This is life today. 

How can we maintain a simple, peaceful lifestyle free from as much noise and confusion as possible? We know that life is difficult, and challenges remain with any lifestyle. However, there are ways to reduce the difficulties and the impact of sin and its consequences that plague us.  

First of all, we need to go back to walking with God. Even though our first parents disobeyed God and lost that first intimate relationship with Him, because of Jesus Christ, we can again have our sins forgiven and have an intimate communion and walk with God. We need to acknowledge our sins and sinfulness, believe that Jesus died for our sins, and ask God to forgive us. Then we must study God’s Word and obey what God told us to do. This is how we go back to walking with God.  

Next, we need to put away anything in our life that defiles us, whether it be sins of the spirit, sins of the flesh, or a love of the world and its system. Anything that makes us unclean, we must put away.  

We must also live peacefully with our fellow men—putting on “tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:12-14). These are keys to a simple, peaceful lifestyle. 

~Harold R Troyer