Let's get a little balance here...

Have you ever felt a little 'off-balance' in your life? You might not know it, but that little niggling can be the beginning of a change for you. Some of us experience being a little 'off-balance' because we have done or said things that actually create an imbalance in our lives. We get too intent on having our own way, making our own point, or finding a solution before we know the real problem, and we will have an imbalance for sure! We get ahead of what God is doing in and around us, stumbling over others and ourselves in the process, and we will experience imbalance. We can be so focused on doing something we think is going to be good for everyone, but we forget to include anyone else in the planning! Balance is a hard thing, but let me assure you, imbalance is harder!

The Eternal prefers those who do good, but He condemns those who plot evil. Doing what is wrong keeps everyone off balance and insecure, but those who do right will never be uprooted. (Proverbs 12:2-3)

We don't have to be doing 'evil things' to find an imbalance in our lives. We can be engaged in perfectly good activities and find we just get a little too far ahead of God, or out of kilter with the others God has placed in our lives. It has been very hard working full-time at home during the quarantine period, taking full-time care of an aging parent, and still trying to take care of myself in the process. Balance is hard to find when our world gets set into an unplanned 'imbalance' all of a sudden, isn't it? I have had to slow down to give mom time so she doesn't get frustrated. I have had to repeat things to her ten times over before she even gets remotely close to understanding why I am not at work, but working in front of the computer in the den. It is hard to help her maintain 'balance' when her world isn't as it normally is, too. She cannot get her hair or pedicure done at the salon, go to the store to just stroll in her wheelchair while I shop, or even have as many 'in-person' visits from the hospice nurse. Balance is elusive when you have little to no control over what can cause imbalance in your life, is it not?

The promise of God to us today is that our 'balance' need not be affected by the things that we cannot control because we have a solid 'rooting' in him. We have been given stability when other things around us seem to be very unstable. We cannot, nor should we wish otherwise, control the circumstances that attempt to steal our balance. We need to give that control of balance over to Christ and he will help us maintain perfect balance. If you have experienced peace when everything around you is spinning out of control, then you have experienced balance. If you have gone through rough places, wondering what would come next in your finances, but seen every bill paid on time, then you might just have experienced God's 'provision' at a time when balance was not always 'equal' with income and outflow in your checking account. I know don't how God does that 'balancing' thing in my life sometimes, but I know one thing for sure - when I place my life squarely in the middle of his presence and just remain content to stay right there, balance is not only achieved, it is maintained! Just sayin!

Put away that scale

Redeeming justice, true peace, and joy - three things we could all probably say we don't see enough of these days!  Newscasts of late have just soured me to even watching the news (something I do more for the weather report than anything else).  Too many shootings, accidents deemed to be hit and run, homes burned out, and children left unattended by parents distracted by their own needs - just about everything as far away from "justice", "peace", or "joy" we could imagine and a little bit more.  We live in a fallen world - a fact that probably hasn't escaped your notice, my friends.  As long as sin reigns, bad stuff will continue to happen.  The good news is that God is above it all - he is able to create within us this everlasting state of peace only he brings because he has been given the place of reigning in our hearts.

When God reigns, the order of the day is redeeming justice, true peace, and joy made possible by the Holy Spirit.  You see, those who serve the Anointed in this way will be welcomed into the whole acceptance of God and valued by all men.   Join us, and pursue a life that creates peace and builds up our brothers and sisters.  (Romans 14:17-19 VOICE)

When God reigns - the simple use of "when" indicates there are times, places, and people in which his reign is challenged.  We all have a free will - something God values and created within each of us.  What we choose to do, how we choose to live, and what responses we will exhibit with life's opportunities or challenges is based on our free will.  It is possible, though, to have a free will and still submit to the reign of Christ in our lives.  It just means we "subject" our will to his oversight and care.  It means we begin to trust him to direct our choices and to give us "balance" wherever we have "swung out of balance".

When we begin to submit to his careful oversight of our choices, we will move into this place of true peace - for our choices are made in total trust of something (or someone) greater than ourselves, our ability, or our fortunes.  If you haven't figured it out yet, friction in relationships is because of an "imbalance" of power - one is upset because the other is taking more control - wanting their own way in some measure.  This imbalance leads to stressed responses and these responses lead to some pretty "unfair" or "unkind" actions. In turn, peace is disrupted, justice is not always the hallmark outcome, and joy leaves the picture entirely.

Life is filled with "redeeming moments" - those opportunities to make right what has gone so terribly wrong in the situation.  Life is also filled with "justice moments" - when we could demand "fairness" and "equity", but when our demands may not be in the interest of "peace" and "balance" in the relationship. It is a fine line we walk between "fairness" and "justice".  In God's eyes, his idea of just is adherence to the "moral standard" he exhibits.  Anything short of that standard is just not justice.  In those moments when we want "fairness", we might just ask God if he can make the moment on in which "redemption" occurs.

Redemption indicates the slate is cleared - no one really "wins" and it is much more than a "win-win" situation.  Instead, two come together as one and in place of "demanded fairness", we accept "payment" for slights in terms of what Christ has already done to "clean the slate" in each of our lives - because that "slight" is already taken care of (paid in full) by the blood of Jesus.  We lean into his grace and we trust him to do within each of us whatever it is that needs to be done, moving us toward peacefulness, resolution, and restoration.  I may not "get justice" every time I feel "wronged" or like there has been some imbalance of reward in life.  What I do get is something called "redeeming justice" - my slate is clean (and so is yours) because of the grace of God operating in my life, helping me "not keep score" in all of those moments in life when I could have. Just sayin!

Divergence

If you have ever tried to walk a straight line, you may just know how difficult this can be without total concentration, immensely good balance, and absolutely nothing pulling or pushing against you.  The slightest distraction can captivate your attention just enough to get you to stumble.  The most insignificant thing like a hiccup could cause you to lose concentration and your course changes ever so slightly.  Even a stray gust of wind can catch you off guard and give you a little challenge to stay the course!  None of these things even remotely come close to the things which might actually "impair" our walk, but each presents a definite opportunity to present us with a little moment of imbalance.  To walk straight, the focus must be on maintaining balance.  To maintain balance, one must know what it is which "impairs" balance.  

Train me, God, to walk straight; then I’ll follow your true path.  Put me together, one heart and mind; then, undivided, I’ll worship in joyful fear. From the bottom of my heart I thank you, dear Lord; I’ve never kept secret what you’re up to.  You’ve always been great toward me—what love!  (Psalm 86:11-14 MSG)

In life, we are faced with things, people, and events which work to "counter" our balance.  The "countering" objects, people, or events actually provide the opportunities for our "calm" to be disturbed - something we need to maintain focus.  If you have been on a boat on calm waters, then noticed the winds begin to kick up a little, you know the choppiness those winds bring to the water.  In just a short amount of time, the concentration it takes to traverse the waters and to remain upright just magnified beyond measure.  Why?  Your "calm" was disturbed!  Life throws stuff at us which has the potential of disturbing our calm - either in our underlying behavior, our actual performance, or our more or less unseen judgment. 

Notice that I underlined the word "potential" - for these objects, people and events have no real pull of their own - they just exert the capability of getting us off balance.  To actually get off balance, we have to move just enough toward their influence to be affected by it!  The wind is blowing outside right now, but I am not affected by it.  Why?  I haven't moved into its path!  I am still on the inside merely looking out.  I am not affected because I have not changed position.  The potential exists for the wind to affect me, but as long as the panes of glass separate me from the wind, I am not made off balance by its presence.  God often uses things like his Word and the influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives (that still small voice directing us) as "buffers" to separate us from those things which want to influence the balance in our lives much in the same way the panes of glass "buffer" the wind.

It is as we are trained to walk straight that we discover the influences which "counter" those which seek to afford a little imbalance in our lives.  It is as God "puts us together" - one heart and one mind - that we discover the peace and purpose of his balance.  What gives us the greatest struggles in life are not the influencing things, people, or events - it is the fact our mind and heart are divided!  We don't have "internal" balance, so maintaining any balance externally is quite difficult until we do.  What do heart and mind actually have to do with balance?  Simply put:  As a man thinks, so he acts.  Heart is the influence of emotion and will.  Mind is the place of decision and memory. Faulty or wrong memories actually affect our judgment in future decisions. Any type of imbalance emotionally will also "pull against" all sense of reason - no matter how much reason may be trying to influence us to act or think a different way. 

We need balance in our minds and hearts FIRST if we are to find any balance in the rest of our lives.  So many times we attempt to find balance "external" to ourselves, but this is backwards.  Balance begins "internally" first, then it begins to affect the external.  When we allow God to align our hearts and minds, we are actually setting ourselves up to begin to see the potential of imbalance by those things external to us which play against us to create an influence which will affect our "calm".  Notice, I said an "influence" designed to affect our calm.  The influence of these things, events, and people is not something we have an inability to resist the effect of in our lives.  In fact, we are given the training to resist their influence - but only as we maintain the right focus on their influence.  Just as I recognize the potential influence of the wind, I know the ability of the glass to help me maintain the right perspective on the wind's influence.  God gives us his Word and the Holy Spirit to help us maintain the right perspective on the influence of those things attempting to pull us off balance today.

Heart and mind are often divergent - choosing a path quite their own.  Do you know what divergence really is?  It is any point of "flux" - a point of imbalance.  God's remedy to us experiencing continual "flux" in our lives is to train us in the realm of balance.  In other words, he begins to reveal to us what creates "variation" in our lives and then he asks us to begin to eliminate the variation.  Variation is what leads to imbalance.  Variation is what disturbs our calm.  Variation is what has the potential of pulling us off course. When God wants to train our hearts and minds, so they might be undivided and work in symbiotic unity, he focuses first on removing the things which afford opportunities for divergence in our walk.  If you find God asking you to reduce the variables - or he is doing the reducing for you - don't resist this. He is merely seeking to bring mind and heart together.  Just sayin!