How to Find the Balance
I think this is the secret question everyone has – how does everyone else balance it all? I don’t know the answer everyone else has – but here is mine: I don’t. And I’m ok with that. Well, most of the time. Sometimes I need to remember that. But truly, I know I was created to be a certain way and I have been given certain blessings and certain trials and those are mine to balance – not the beauty in the lives of others. How to find the balance is a fine line that finds its rest and enough in Christ.
I struggle with the balance of everything. All the housecleaning, meal planning and preparing. School. PLANNING their school. Bible studies. Church stuff. Relationships. House projects. Long distance family. Blogging. Life. Sometimes I feel like I am doing ok. Other times I feel like a mess. Other times I feel like I am failing everyone and everything. There is much to be done in the every day, and at times that is overwhelming. But we are not tasked with doing everything, and we should not expect that from ourselves.
We need to be faithful with the task God has put in front of us, being faithful and diligent with the little things.
The mundane things, the things no one thanks us for, the hard things. The everyday art of living.
The Great Paradox in Running & Being Still
It is still a great paradox to me that we are to run with endurance and yet also be still and know that He is God.
Being still before God is the only way we can truly run with endurance – and doesn’t it just line up so fittingly with how God’s ways are not our ways?
If you want to be great in His kingdom, serve.
If you want to be rich, give what you have away.
Want to run with endurance? Be still.
No value can be placed on the quiet, still moments spent alone with the Lord each morning. Or slipped in whenever it can happen – some seasons don’t have quiet mornings. But that time with Him gives purpose and direction to each days steps. And during those weary seasons He is so, so faithful in our weakness.
We all have our to-do lists and endless tasks to accomplish and setting our priorities with the daily communication with God is both refreshing and a very practical step.
I have realized that the most important thing in all of my responsibilities is to be a reflection of Christ. I fail over and over again, but it’s a wonderful and freeing standard to be held to. HE is everything. And I need Him. And if I go through my day grumbling, complaining, or in any other form of a bad attitude and accomplish EVERYTHING on my list, it is really a failure of a day because I have been a poor testimony to the love that Christ has poured into me.
Honoring Christ is my top priority as a homeschool mom. I need to be a wise steward with my time, and I need to be discerning about the things I say yes to. But within that, I need to allow the peace of God to permeate my daily choices with the things He allows to enter each day.
Peace and rest can be found in Christ and that is the secret to balance. Which isn’t really a secret at all. All of God’s word calls us to remember Him. To come to Him. To trust Him.
A shift in our focus, a reminder of the priorities and the things of eternal value will encourage our hearts through all the seasons we face.
Do the Next Thing, a beautiful poem quoted by Elisabeth Elliot, but without a named author.
Questions to Consider:
- What are your specific struggles that you are trying to balance?
- How have you seen God’s faithfulness through previous trials that you can turn into thanksgiving and anchors of hope for current and future struggles?
- How do you, or how could you start to, carve out time for quiet and stillness with God so that you can run your own race with endurance?