Simplicity - A Call to a Simpler Life
By Senior Pastor Tri Robinson

I don’t know exactly how it happened, but one morning I woke up with the realization that I was tired.  It wasn’t the kind of tired like I hadn’t had enough sleep – it was bone weary tired.  Somehow life had gotten away from me.  For the past few years I had been giving it my all, yet not accomplishing half of what I set out to do. In many areas of my life I felt I was spinning my wheels. All that I had been doing was important; sitting on various boards, building a wonderful growing church in Boise, constructing a mountain cabin with my family, and working on a country home with my wife Nancy.

As a Regional Director, I had been overseeing nearly a hundred churches in nine states. I was traveling across the country and around the world teaching seminars and encouraging and training church leaders. I was also a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a son to people that I deeply loved and cared about. I was juggling what felt like a hundred balls, not wanting any of them to fall. And suddenly, I was tired.

That morning as I looked out my front window at the distant snow covered mountain I realized something had to give. My life had become too complex, too busy and basically out of control. I realized the things that truly gave me joy, and the things I really wanted to invest my life in, were being pushed aside for dozens of good things. Honestly, they weren’t just good things, they were things that I had felt privileged to be a part of. It became very clear as I sat there pondering all of this; it was time to re-evaluate, re-organize and re-focus.

During that same year both of Nancy’s parents had passed away. Amidst the mourning and sense of loss, we realized that life truly is very short. It is like the psalmist once said, “You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath”. [Psalm 39:5] Our lives had clearly become too complex. Deep within both of us was a yearning for a life that was rendered down to God’s good, pleasing and perfect will, a life that wasn’t going at such a breakneck pace that it missed the very gift of life itself.

A number of years ago Nancy and I felt the Lord was calling us back to a life of simplicity, a life that we once knew but had innocently drifted from somehow. Through the years our lifestyle was slowly overcome by the complexity of urgent schedules, pressing responsibilities and a fast moving technological society that robbed us of the peace we experienced in our earlier days of marriage. In our quest for a simplified life, we realized that a deliberate process of change must be pursued; a process that would first require an awakening to the reality of our condition, followed by a decision to invest the time, perhaps a lifetime, to change.

In Hebrews chapter four of the Bible it says that scripture is living and active and it can penetrate our innermost being like a sharp double edged sword. [Heb. 4:12] Because of this truth, the Bible has the amazing ability to speak to every condition we face – regardless of our age, gender, ethnicity or the time in history we happen to live. It is always relevant and pertinent in every challenge and situation. We are called to be a people of both truth and spirit, and because of it the Lord often speaks to us by his Spirit when we read the truth of scripture. I say this to bring clarity to an experience Nancy had a few years back. She was reading a passage in Deuteronomy 4 which warned the Israelites saying, “Be very careful never to forget what you have seen the LORD do for you. Do not let these things escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren.” God was exhorting the people not to forget what he had done for them, and how he had done it, as they had moved into a new time and place of life. He instructed them to pass on these truths and values to the new generations. This passage was especially meaningful to both of us as we are grandparents. Much had transpired in our lives since we had met the Lord over thirty years earlier. The world had definitely become a more complex place, and in turn our lives had as well.

Nancy and I met at the end of the 60’s in a time when our culture was going through much transition and turmoil. It affected all of our lives. We were right in the middle of the “Baby Boom” generation, a generation that was searching for answers concerning morality, world peace, an uncertain future and the meaning of life itself. The issue of caring for the environment was at the forefront of our social causes because it was visibly degrading. Honestly, it frightened us to see this and we didn’t know what to do about it. Few in our generation had any real knowledge of Biblical truth and as a result, there was no comfort from knowing that there was a Creator and he was still in control. Rather than looking to God for answers we read men like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau. In what seemed to be an out of control, complex world many of us sought a simpler life. We wanted a Walden Pond, a place where the clutter and clamor of life would pass us by, where the answers to life’s questions could be found. Some from our generation attempted homesteading in Alaska while others sought communal living on the coasts of California or Oregon. But in the end, we found no utopia and no true answers to be found through escapism. The “peace” that was being preached with hostility through protests and demonstrations was elusive, always just out of our grasp. It became evident that it must be found somewhere deep within us; it would never manifest itself through a world caught in crisis.

In 1971 Nancy and I took up residence on an isolated ranch that had been in my family for 70 years. The small cabin that became our home for the next twenty years was heated with an open fire place and a wood-burning cook stove in the small kitchen. Water was gravity-fed from springs on the mountain, which actually was a wonderful convenience. But we lived for the first fourteen years without electricity and much longer without a phone. For all of those years we had no television or computer – only books and each other for entertainment. We had a bountiful garden and orchard and in those first years on the ranch, we grew the majority of our food. Nancy canned and stored our reserves in a root cellar that I dug in the mountainside behind the cabin. It was a rich time for us and our two children, Kate and Brook. Life in those days was quite simple and often filled with adventure that provided us all with fond memories we cherish to this day.

Although our physical life was isolated and basic we quickly came to the reality that the complexity that robs one’s peace doesn’t solely come from a confusing world but also from within. Through our desperation for truth and healing in the solitude and simplicity of Robinson Canyon Ranch we discovered an authentic relationship with Christ. Our church community became not only a source of discipleship and spiritual grounding, but provided meaningful and lasting relationships. Those early years were stretching for us in many ways, but the isolation of our lifestyle stimulated a season of growth and maturity both in our relationship with the Lord as well as with each other. Even our faith in God was without complexity. A simpler life gave us opportunity for a pure and simple devotion to Christ. It reminds me of Paul’s warning to the Christians in Corinth who were trying to grow in the confusion of their complex society: “…I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.” [2 Cor. 11:3]

For the first twelve years we lived on the ranch, I worked as a teacher at a junior high school nearly an hour from home. Nancy held down the fort as a homemaker and full time mom. Later we entered the ministry as volunteer laymen until we were called to a full time ministry position in the Lancaster Vineyard. That was when I entered into the pastorate. Reflecting back on that season in our lives makes me realize again how quickly time flies.

In 1989 we left the ranch establishing ourselves in Idaho where we pioneered a new Vineyard in Boise. Our work in Idaho was both demanding and rewarding and our lifestyle took a major turn. Planting a church takes everything you’ve got, especially in the first years of its conception. Our home became a center for church business, counseling and leadership training. Kate and Brook were now in their teens and enjoying a new life of social activity, athletics and outdoor recreation. For the first time we had a television in our home, a computer, and a telephone that continually interrupted our privacy with telemarketers, especially at family dinner hour.

The times were definitely changing; simplicity was becoming hidden in the conveniences of life. It wasn’t long before cell phones became a common part of the culture and email was the accepted form of daily communication. The promise that email would simplify communication proved untrue as I fought daily to keep up with it; it just seemed to multiply and often hindered my work. Another change was that Nancy and I had a mortgage on our home for the first time. We also entered into a partnership with a close friend on two rental houses for extra income. This required a fast learning curve due to my ignorance concerning such things as buying and selling properties, building codes and permits, escrows, interest rates, capital gains, and all the potential pitfalls of state and federal income and property taxes. Up until this time we had only a simple checking and savings account – now we had to establish credit, take home equity loans and periodically refinance for lower interest rates. With our kids beginning to drive and own vehicles, plus the properties we owned, we had to learn much about insurance: auto insurance, homeowner’s insurance, landlord’s insurance, mortgage insurance, title insurance, fire and flood insurance, and not to mention health, dental and supplemental insurance. With material ownership comes responsibility so I took out life insurance for the first time, started a serious retirement savings plan, made out a will and eventually established a family trust with the help of a lawyer. It became evident that life could be very complicated and complex.

In addition to the demands of our personal life I was now the senior pastor of a rapidly growing church that continued to require every bit of leadership ability I had to offer. Although most of what I have described above is necessary in today’s world, the simple life of solitude was gone and with it something precious had been lost. Our devotion to Christ and our love for his church hadn’t diminished in any way, but the time to enjoy his presence was becoming an intentional discipline instead of a natural outflow of our lives.

By 2002 both of our kids were married and we had our first grandchild. We were dealing with the empty nest and characteristically found a new baby to spoil - a Golden Lab puppy. It was during this time that the Lord began to speak to Nancy through her devotions, calling us to “return to the things we did at first” and to remember what God had done for us in the beginning. It was then that the Lord miraculously opened the door for us to once again move to a quiet home in the hills about 50 minutes outside the city of Boise. At that time I took a short leave from church and spent about a month building fence lines, putting in an irrigation system and constructing a barn.

Every morning I found myself sitting on the deck watching the first light of day cast its rays on a distance butte, feeling a cool morning breeze that was caused by thermals from the valley below. I sipped black coffee and embraced the lost luxury of unhindered silence. In those days something was restored in me, something was recaptured that I hadn’t even realized had been lost. I began to look forward to spending time with the Lord; it was no longer a scheduled discipline. I had somehow returned to that quiet refreshing peace of solitude and with it my zeal for life and creative juices began to flow in new and fresh ways. Nancy and I reevaluated how we spent our time. We changed our priorities so that our energy would be expended on the things that were most meaningful. New ideas for ministry began to emerge as God again had access to my thoughts and prayers. It was because of this new season of solitude that I decided to begin “Let’s Tend the Garden”, Vineyard Boise’s environmental ministry, and the “Compassion in Action Team” (CAT), our fast response disaster relief ministry that so effectively worked among the Hurricane Katrina victims in 2005.

In addition to ministry the Lord began to speak to us about our personal lives.  I began to feel a need to return to the joy of a simpler life, growing and raising our own food, becoming once again less dependent on the complexity of a technological world. I felt challenged to become more self-reliant when it came to energy, water and food sources. I knew from our previous life at the ranch how rewarding and invigorating it is to be at home with creation, and how refreshing it is to work hard with your hands doing purposeful creative work. [Eph. 4:28b]