I hear a lot of talk out there about achieving "balance" in life, in ministry, with family, with health, with EVERYTHING! I want to say a three things about this discussion and tell you what I know from my personal experiences and from what I have observed as someone that has served closely alongside some high capacity leaders.
1. The "balance" that I hear about in which (nearly) everything in life is harmonious is a well-meaning myth. Rarely, let me repeat it again just a bit louder, RARELY, will all of the pieces in your life line up. If living in this world is at all like Jenga, you will have a few moments in which your life resembles a stable well-built structure with total alignment, but, if you live on the same planet I live on, you will soon notice that nothing in life stays the same for long.
Pieces are moved (some with your permission, some not). Some pieces that get moved are pretty unimportant…others are quite foundational. Sometimes it will be funny when these pieces get moved…other times it won't be funny at all.
2. Don't get me wrong, I think that the balance experts (who are normally selling you books and programs) mean well. You should desire and even work toward a sense of balance and harmony in your life. However, and this is very ironic, the endless pursuit of balance ends up causing a great deal of stress because you start to wonder why your best efforts seem to never work. You bought the book. You bought the audiobook. Your bought the file cabinet. You bought the PDA. You use a calendar. Heck – you even pray regularly. And…in spite of all of this – you still have not achieved the sense of balance that the experts talk about. Here is what I believe:
You will never achieve the balance that they talk about because they are in the balance business. If you achieved it – you would never need to buy any more of their products and you and I know that that would be fundamentally un-American.
3. Balance is an on-going journey and not some far off destination. In the journey, sometimes your life will be completely chaotic and I want you to know that this doesn't say anything negative about you. DON'T start to feel like a loser when you see how messy things are. It's just the nature of life. Since I am a pastor, let me give you a quick anecdote about Jesus. His life was full of ups and downs, highs and lows. He laughed. He cried. He kicked over tables. To me – this is what balance means. A little bit of this and a little bit of that = balance.
My wife is about to have a baby in 9 days. I have three kids under the age of 10. I just started a church last week. I am a full-time grad student (I am writing you know in between classes). I also eat and sleep sometimes. I get frazzled, frustrated, and regularly fart (I needed one more "f" word) from the gas caused by all of the stress.
Let me tell you- my life rarely feels like the completely assembled Jenga game and that is perfectly fine with me. I love when it feels perfectly assembled, but that just doesn't happen a lot.
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Let the church say Amen!
Great reminders, Shaun. Thanks!
Great tips Pastor Shaun! Congrats in advance on your new baby!
WOW, and i thought my schedule was full. Thanks P.Shaun for giving me hope and a sense of rest. Balance is a journey not a destination. We learn a lot from the journey about who we really are.
Thanks Bro, this was a much needed post!
Reminding myself that this moment is what it is and the next moment will be what it will be is the best source of balance for me. This moment is really all we have.
I too think that balance is a myth. The dissonance comes when you feel bad about what you are doing versus what you think you should be doing. Whatever your attention is on, is what will get the focus at that time, and that’s perfectly ok.