OK, so I’m just thinking aloud here… but I want to hear you’re take on this. We talk a lot about balance, about looking for balance, but here’s my question:
Does Jesus call us to live a balanced life, or to live a skewed life?
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Archives
- July 2016
- June 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- February 2015
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
very much depends what you mean…
Balanced in our views, our time management, our heads, our hearts, our direction? then yes, balanced… but not too balanced. I believe we should always have flexibility in our lives and schedules.
Skewed towards love, towards God… mais oui…
In true fluffy Holly style I’m going to say both… 😉
Look at me procrastinating…
That’s a good question. I think I may use it when teaching at some point. Thanks for posting this.
Balance in life is quite relative. The right balance could be highly skewed. Of course, from another person’s perspective, what is skewed for you is decidedly not so to them. My point being that the word balance conjures up an image of things done in equal measure. What I believe it’s about is simply getting things in the right measures – so it may well look very skewed for some people.
So what’s the point of balance? Is it to keep one mentally sane? Is it to keep one spiritually on track in terms of direction, action and strength? Is it to etc? I think it can be best summed as follows:
The perfect balance facilitates optimal efficiency and maximum effectiveness directed towards the things that matter most (remembering that things are interdependent).
That’s a long way of saying that Jesus seemed to encourage us to live lives of as perfect balance as we possibly can. It just so happens that (totally depending on your perspective) it’s an incredibly skewed balance.
I’m glad everyone’s on the same wavelength here. I did a post on balance a little while ago…and this is what I was getting at (though I think you and your commenters have said it better)…especially :
“Jesus seemed to encourage us to live lives of as perfect balance as we possibly can. It just so happens that (totally depending on your perspective) it’s an incredibly skewed balance.”
I love that!
Thanks for chipping in guys… I didn’t have any specific answer I was angling for, just thinking aloud with you. The question was sparked in part by a podcast I listened to recently. The speaker made a comment about ‘healthy people’ – people want a 9-5 job, where they go home after a day’s work, switch off, and spend time with their wife & kids; that not everyone wakes up in the morning and wants to change the world. It prompted a question in my heart about the people who make an impact on the world; about the shape of their lives. Are they balanced or skewed?
Again, I have no specific answer I’m pushing to, merely thinking aloud. You guys have made some fantastic comments, thanks!
I always kinda presumed that most people would like to change the world. I guess that thought remains just there and no further for most people. Or maybe people settle for changing a smaller part of the world. Like when I was put in charge of 800 kingdoms (people’s accounts) from an alliance in some big internet game many years ago. I may not have been changing the world, but I had influence and power over something big in my world.
–I know wanting to change the world isn’t usually primarily about influence and power, but it’s presumably the chance to order your world in the way you believe is best.–
So anyway, I think some people happen to be more outwardly focused and ambitious. The ones who truly go for that will probably have a specially wide variety of unusual balancings in their lives. That’s just a guess though. I say it because… well, when you have something that you believe in and you go for it – suddenly everything else begins to rotate around that and is subservient or perhaps just inferior to it (sort of).
All of that is preamble for the following which I just thought of:
Once you have defined your priorities, your life will be very likely to skew in favour of those. So if your no.1 priority is money (for yourself and your family) and no.2 priority is spending time with your family, then your life will probably skew drastically in that direction. If you want to change the world… well, your life will look a bit different. It might not be a bigger skew – it just might look very different.