“I have come to believe that the threshold of the Way of Life is simplicity. We make the choice; we receive the faith; we place our trust in God…How Jesus put it, calling a little child to stand in the midst of them, was ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 18:3 NIV)…The entry point is simplicity…
Many people say that simplicity is a personal choice (it is, but not in the sense that they mean it—optional); some are called to it, others are not. Soothingly, reasonably, as to a willful child (my bad attitudes drive them to it, but they’re still wrong!), they explain to me that as long as a person has simplicity on the inside, in the heart, that’s what matters—then it’s okay to embrace all the trappings of worldliness, because what God looks on is the heart. Unequivocally, I refute this. They mean well, but their advice is a signpost that points in the wrong direction.”
Penelope Wilcock, In Celebration of Simplicity (Monarch Books, 2009) 11-12.