Word Study Series: Balance
As Christians, we spend much of our time trying to find balance in our lives. We split our lives up into different segments: home life, work life, and church life. Let me let you in on a secret: you cannot split up your life this way and think you will find balance. You have only one life and cannot divide yourself no matter how hard you try.
The dictionary defines balance as: an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady. Obviously, the writers of the dictionary had time to spare. With all the demands life throws at us, it can be quite difficult to find balance. You cannot distribute your efforts evenly to everything on your plate because some things and people demand a lot more of you than others.
In efforts to achieve balance in my life, I decided to adopt a motto I call “one stress at a time.” When I have several weighty tasks to do, I make a conscious decision to evaluate what is the most important thing that should demand my attention at that particular moment. Once I decide, I put all my efforts into that one thing while at the same time putting some – but not much – effort into those other things. I create a list and then prioritize it. Something will just have to go undone. Undone! Yes, I said it. Ladies, I know this is hard for us but if we continue at a grueling pace for extended periods of time we will burn out and then nothing will get done. I have experienced this. When I’ve had several things to do, I tend to go into some type of emotional paralysis and don’t get anything accomplished. I was like the clown walking the tightrope, juggling several plates, which shortly came crashing down. This is when I decided to adopt my “one stress at a time” motto.
Instead of trying to split up our lives into segments, I have found it more useful to incorporate things into your life. For example, understand that work, church, home, etc. are all part of your life. Your goal is to try to make them all coincide. They are all important and they are all a part of your one life. They are not competing with one another. You are just consistently bringing them into harmonious oneness. The more I bring these into oneness the more balance I have in my life. But this does not just happen. You to have to work at making them come together and it’s an ongoing process.
Mary and Martha are a good example in the Bible. Martha was running around trying to get everything together and I’m sure everything had to be “just right.” Mary decided that housework would be there always. At that particular moment, spending time with Jesus was the most “needful” or important thing to do. She had achieved balance. If I had to imagine Mary living in today’s times, she would probably order out and pull out the paper plates so she could spend more time with Jesus, not worrying about feeding all the unexpected guests.
Ladies, in these times which demand so much of our time we need to embrace balance in our lives. We must learn to say no sometimes and not feel guilty. We also must learn to be ok with some things going undone. We have one life and it’s a short and precious one. We don’t want to spend the majority of it worrying about things that will be insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Let us ask the Lord to help us achieve balance in our lives to benefit others and benefit ourselves.