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Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: 5 Life Lessons I Learned Selling My Possessions

Over Memorial Day Weekend, 2008, I became a minimalist.

My journey into minimalism was not entered into as a fad, experiment, or temporary life adjustment. Nor was it just for the purpose of moving, getting out of debt, traveling the world, or quitting my job. My decision to intentionally live with less was born out of my desire to line up my life’s pursuit with my heart’s deepest desires. It was about creating space for faith, family, and friends. It was a decision I knew would influence the rest of my life. And I wouldn’t trade a minute of it.

Over the past five years, we have removed 60-70% of our personal possessions, we have moved into a smaller home, we have removed ourselves from the hollow race of American consumerism, and we have completely changed our habits of consumption. As a result, we have found more time for the things that are most important. In short, we have been finally able to start living the life we always wanted to live.

This journey towards minimalism has been far more life-changing than I anticipated. The possessions in our lives define who we are on a far deeper level than we know. And as a result, the process of removing them teaches us valuable truths about ourselves.

But the most important life lessons I’ve learned can be summed up like this:

1. Possessions weigh down our lives more than we realize. They are heavy and cumbersome. They slow us down. They demand our time, energy, attention, and focus. They need to be purchased, transported, organized, cleaned, sorted, fixed, and managed. They keep us from the ones we love and from living a life based on our values. Ultimately, they cause us to lose our life rather than find it. Life is indeed better with less.

2. Our lives are just too valuable to waste chasing possessions. Society has told us our greatest dreams should consist of “doing well in school, getting a high-paying job, and buying a really nice house with lots of cool things.” That is a shame because we can dream bigger dreams. We can dream better dreams. Our lives can be far more valuable than the things we own. Our lives are meant to be built on the things that really matter: love, faith, hope, charity, relationships, influence, significance, spirituality…. not the physical things that will always perish, spoil, or fade.

3. Living with less provides the freedom to pursue our greatest passions. The removal of excessive possessions and the intentional decision to live with less offers countless benefits. In exchange for removing the clutter, we are rewarded with newfound finances, time, energy, freedom, and mental capacity. Our lives are lived with less stress, less anxiety, and less burden. Our finite resources become more available to us… and we are freed to pursue our greatest passions—whatever they may be.

4. The external decision to own less has a positive impact on our journey inward. Owning (and buying) less has allowed my heart to change and adopt values I have always admired in others. Through the process, I have learned contentment, generosity, gratitude, self-control, honesty, and appreciation. These attributes were difficult to discover during the pursuit of more… but the intentional pursuit of less has allowed room in my heart for them to surface.

5. Jesus had it right all along. When I removed the accumulation and pursuit of possessions from my life, Christ’s teachings on money and possessions began to take a new hold on my life. I began to realize his teachings to “sell your possessions and give to the poor” and to “not hoard up treasures here on earth” are not instructions designed to make my life miserable while on earth. They weren’t given as some means of forced sacrifice on our lives. They are an invitation—an invitation to live a more abundant, meaningful life—just like everything else Jesus taught. This abundant life is available to anyone who begins to believe that Jesus knew exactly what he was talking about… even when he encouraged us to give away our possessions and pursue something greater instead.

Joshua Becker has served in Student Ministry for 14 years. He blogs at Becoming Minimalist where he encourages others to find more life by owning less. And his new book, Living with Less: An Unexpected Key to Happiness, is written to inspire teenagers and young adults to discover the simple truth behind Christ’s plain teaching on money and possessions.

2 View Comments November 12, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts eBay Offering: A Modern Day, Student-Friendly Take on “Sell Their Possessions and Giving to Anyone in Need”

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. -Acts 2:42

For two weeks HSM is going to offer a unique way of having students give an offering.

We’re in the middle of a church-wide campaign that includes a significant offering component at the end. Pastor Rick has been talking quite a bit about Acts 2:42, the “sell their possessions and give to those in need” and sharing how in the early days of Saddleback people literally downsized their houses and gave the difference to the church. We’ve taken this verse very literally in the past, and while I love it, the application to the present-day life of teenager doesn’t seem very relevant.

So this weekend we’re going to launch what we hope is a very student-friendly, modern day take on Acts 2:42. While students can still literally tithe and/or give an offering in an envelope, we’re also going to let them bring in items to sell. Here’s the idea:

Want to participate in the offering but don’t have money? Here’s how: donate something of our own to the giving campaign. First get your parent’s permission, then bring in any item worth $50 or more and give it away at the eBay offering table. We’ll take each of the items and put them on eBay and find new owners for your stuff with all of the proceeds going directly to the campaign.

The opportunity to give will run for just 2 weeks, Nov 6/7 and 13/14 and students from the Oh Snaps! photography ministry will take pictures of the items as they come in and another student leader will help write up the product description. The whole process will be done by students and overseen by an adult, with 100% of the proceeds go to the 2020: The Future is Now offering.

When I announce it this weekend, I’m going to give away 2 things myself to the campaign: one that is easy to give away, and one that is more of a sacrifice. I’m going to give away my copy of Avatar: the Video Game for the Xbox 360. Easy, the game is average at best and I’ve already beat it. But I’m also going to give something away as a sacrifice, one that I’ll feel a little more: my brand new copy of Halo: Reach. I want to make sure students hear that we don’t just give out of abundance, but we give out of sacrifice as well. Why am I doing this again? Hahahha …

So we’ll see how it goes! Could be a total flop, but I think even just using this concept as a teaching point could be valuable for our students and might be worth it alone. If it takes off, it could be something really special.

JG