Articles
Balance
Ecclesiastes 7:18 The man who fears God will avoid all [extremes]. NIV
Philippians 4:5 Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. KJV
Balance in life is one of the more difficult things to attain and maintain. The idea of balance is not to become overly consumed in any direction. In our lives there are multitude of responsibilities and activities that require our time and attention. The struggle we face is trying to decide what will we give our attention and time to and how much of our time will we give our choices.
Luke 10:40 But Martha was distracted with much serving,
Luke 10:41 And Jesus answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things
Martha is an excellent example of someone who is out of balance. When Jesus was in her house, Martha, lost focus of what was really important. She was more concerned with being a good hostess than she was in listening to the teaching of the Christ.
Every moment of our conscious awake life we are having to make choices as to what we are going to do with our time. There are God given responsibilities we are commanded to be doing in the scriptures. We are to strive to draw near to God by spending time with His word and being fervent in prayer. We are commanded to provide for our families and to love, lead, and teach our children. We are commanded to work hard with our hands in secular jobs to be able to provide for the needs of our families. We are commanded to assemble with the saints to worship our God. We are commanded to bear one another’s burdens in the family of God. I could go on and on with commands about our responsibilities in life.
The struggle we face is being all the Lord wants us be and not losing our balance in the process. If I give all my time to reading the Bible without spending time living it with my family, my brethren, and the world around me, then I am out of balance and have gone to an extreme. If I spend all my time with my family or all my time at work then again I am out of balance and living in extremes.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:
One of the first steps we must take to ever hope to attain balance in our lives is to continually ask ourselves, what is it time to do. If its time to go to work then work hard. If it is time to worship then give yourself completely to that effort. If it is time to spend with your family then soak it in and enjoy them. We must always try to be aware of where we are in the moment and be able to determine from the present circumstances what it is time to do. To do what needs to be done in the right time is a life of balance.
