Thursday, July 17, 2008

Striving for Balance


You might remember a post I wrote several weeks ago about trying to fit it all in. Trying to accomplish everything, my mind a constant whirlwind of to-do’s, need to do’s and should be doings. Life gets in the way of living sometimes.

This morning when I was studying a bible study from the Women of Faith website titled The Juggling Act. Don’t you love how God presents himself to you just when you need it most? Just last night I was talking to a dear sweet friend about the balance. About trying to give yourself and your time to everyone who matters, to everyone you love. Meanwhile maintaining the priority of marriage, of work, of church…where do we fit it all in? What really matters most?

I have friends who are consumed by only one area of their life, completely devoted to their spouse, they spend all their free time together. Completely engulfed in church, they spend all their time there. Completely obsessed with their careers, they spend all their time there or thinking of being there, or worrying about what is happening there. I don’t want to live a one dimensional life. Believe me I have been there and done that. There was a time when I spent my time consumed with church, a time I spent consumed with LaLa love land, a time I spent consumed with work. None of it worked! None of it left me completely fulfilled. Living consumed by something, no matter what it was, church, love, work, college, none of it brought me closest to God. It was this deployment, when the outer things were peeled away, layer by painful layer and I was left alone that I was brought closest to Him. I found Him right where I left him, sitting on a shelf, in the backseat behind my list of to-do’s. When I wasn’t consumed with church, friends, staying busy, college, Delta Zeta, my career, I found Him! When we are consumed with Him things seem to fall more into place. I know that I am making a list of priorities and everything else will have to fall away.

1. God, living a life consumed with Him, Spending more time in scripture filling myself more completely with His words.
2. Family, immediate family first. Rob and Max are only second to God. I never want them to feel like everything else is more important than them because nothing is. Then next in line is the rest of our family.
3. Ministry, refer down several posts, I still don’t exactly what mine is but I do know that I am experiencing an abundance of God in this deployment and I am being drawn to women’s ministry again and again.
4. Friends, dear friends. This probably means YOU. Savanah, Julie, Kera Don, Summer, Codie make the top of my list, there are many more that I call friend but these girls are so important to me and I need to show them that more often.

That’s my list. When I think about what I want to do, when I have to make a decision about how I spend my time, that is the list I am going to refer to, to check against.

I know that I still don’t have the balance right. I know that there are things I need to edit. Things I need to add, and things I need to let go of. I do know that I want to live a life more balanced. A life that is centered on Christ, but that is flowing in a circle, Rob, Max, Family, Church, Friends, Giving, Volunteering, Studying, Growing, Stretching, Seeking, Finding. I want to live a life of complicated simplicity. Because simplifying your “list” doesn’t make life EASY, it still gets complicated. But when we simplify our priorities it becomes so much easier to focus on that which is truly important.

Tomorrow I will meet with that dear sweet friend, we are finally carving out a niche of time to spend together and I am so thankful for it. I know that we will finish our talk about the balance and the juggling act and I hope that we can both walk away feeling better, refreshed from our time together. In fact I know that we will because we always do.

Complicated Simplicity, it’s what I want.
Always
Jesi


Accompanying Scripture
In Luke 12: 22-23 Jesus reminds us that our lives are about more than our body and our earthly beings.
“Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.”

In Verse 25 I found a breath of fresh air, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

What is most important? In Timothy 4:8 Paul tells us that “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

No comments: