This hardcover book is the FIFTH PRINTING of the FIRST EDITION that was published in 1982 by Harper & Row with 208 pages. The text is unmarked. The binding is sound. The dust jacket is moderately worn around the edges with several small closed tears and some creasing. "Models of simplicity are desperately needed today. Our task is urgent and relevant. Our century thirsts for the authenticity of simplicity, the spirit of prayer, and the life of obedience."— Richard J. FosterWritten in the same warm, engaging style as his acclaimed Celebration of Discipline and filled with vital new insights, Richard J. Foster's Freedom of Simplicity courageously articulates a creative, more human style of living and points the way for Christians to make their lives "models of simplicity." Foster shows us that the Christian Discipline of simplicity is an inward reality that liberates our outward lifestyle by freeing us from dishonest speech, obsessive status-seeking, compulsive extravagance, and a loss of perspective on the true nature of our involvement with the world in which we live.Foster provides a way to rethink our priorities, to "seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness," with confidence that, afterward, everything will come in its proper order. But Freedom of Simplicity rejects simplistic answers to the dilemmas of day-to-day existence; it takes full account of the rich, ordered complexity of life and shows us how to live in full, rewarding harmony with this complexity. Foster stresses the intrinsic relation among simplicity and prayer, solitude, and all the Christian Disciplines.Freedom of Simplicity offers solid guidelines for individual, ecclesiastical, and corporate action. Among the many topics covered are management of wealth, sharing, charitable works, and honesty in all dealings with our fellows.Foster traces the roots of simplicity through the Bible and the early Church, illustrates these principles with examples from the lives of the saints, and establishes simplicity's relevance to modern personal and social ills. Freedom of Simplicity is enhanced with a rich selection of the best pertinent readings from classical and contemporary sources.In this age of scarcity, in a society plagued by the unreasoning, self-destructive mania to achieve and accumulate, simplicity may be the only option left to us; but it is an option to be free and fulfilled, to live with grace, balance, and joy.