Editors Note: While we believe this page still has value, it was published in the early stages of our journey when our primary goal (and focus of this web site) was living a more simple life. In reality, homesteading is quite complicated, but in the right ways at least.

There are many reasons to live simply and there’s no web site that could do those myriad reasons justice. For our family, we have some main drivers behind living simply:

Better stewardship of the resources God has gifted us with

We believe that God has given humankind the privilege and duty of stewarding the physical creation. Since the beginning, we’ve been royally messing this up and continue to make decisions and take actions that harm creation. We don’t believe this is the right use of what we’ve been blessed with. Further, many of these actions humanity has taken have been sourced in greed and have resulted in not only harm to creation, but also violence, injustice, war, poverty and a host of other ills of society that grieve the creator. We also believe that those willing to seek the wisdom of God for solutions will find new ways of solving practical issues (ie. energy, food production, etc) that don’t harm creation. (ie. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him. – Psalm 25:14)

More time and money for important things

When we live simply, we have more time and resources for the truly important things in life. The more simple our lives, the more we can engage in these important things. Likewise, when our financial lives are simple, we have an abundance of resources to share with others  – particularly those who need them like the millions of children orphaned by AIDS every year alone. There’s no shortage of better uses for our resources. We cannot hope to engage in making a difference toward these issues if our time and finances are tied up in other things. This leads to the next reason we desire simplicity.

Debt reduction and elimination

The scriptures teach that “The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender’s slave” – Proverbs 22:7. We certainly don’t desire to be rich and rule over the poor, however even more than that, we’re not enjoying being slaves to lenders either! We believe simplicity is a key ingredient to moving out of indebtedness. A simpler life needs less material resources to be satisfied, and less time-wasting experiences to quench the soul. Despite their eccentricity, the Amish are a good example of simplicity on many levels. Their lack of pursuing material gain affords them lots of community-based, meaningful time with others. Further, you’ll rarely meet an Amish person who’s in debt to the level of the rest of us. While we don’t seek to be Amish, we admire some aspects of their desire for simplicity.