Daily Devotional for Wednesday December 15, 1999

Balance

(Psalms 8)

Balance. Probably the most difficult thing for most of us to do in our life is achieve balance. Balance between our relationship with the Lord, service to Him, live with our families, school or work, recreation... keeping it all in balance can be one of life's greatest difficulties. I have been hitting hard lately on serving the Lord, serving Him by serving others, your daily time with Him. Let me tell you that if you do nothing but serve God and neglect your family, neglect school, or neglect work, than you are not in His perfect will. God call for us to have a life of balance. We are still serving Him when we are with our families. We are still serving Him when we are at school, at work, or at play. For people that are what society calls overachievers, being out of balance is one of the most frequent problems and leads to an unraveling of our life.

Satan gets to know you, your personality, your abilities. One of his tricks and acts of deception for those who are gifted, is to get them so focused on one aspect of their life that they neglect other aspects. Ultimately, the areas they neglect will become a problem and in the end, make their service to the Lord ineffective as they deal with the crisis in other areas of their life. God gave you a brain to learn, God gave you talents to earn an income, and God gave you bodies that need to be looked after and maintained. God has given you a spouse, children, and family members. God has given you friends in this life. Sometimes we can get so focused on one aspect of our life that we neglect others, and it ends up causing a great deal of pain in our lives. Some of the most successful businessmen I know are terrible husbands, terrible fathers, and terrible in other areas of their lives. Some women put so much into their families that they neglect their health, expanding their mind, and making themselves a whole, balanced person.

I write this today just as a word of caution that you take inventory of your life today and see what areas you may be neglecting. Staying balanced is critical to serving God, because if other areas of your life are in order, it makes you a much better servant in the other tasks God gives you to do. I will be praying for you today. Take a good, hard, honest look at your life. Write down those areas that need attention. Make a schedule if you need to to insure you are paying enough attention to all areas of your life. It is never easy. it is always challenging. But we must have our life in balance to be the servant God has called us to be. He loves you and wants the very best for you life. Finding that balance between the various elements that make up our life is critical to long, fruitful, productive service to our Lord.

Please continue to pray for Liveprayer. It is very busy here each day. So many are in the holiday season and alone. We are glad that we are here to give them hope and fill some of that void in their life, pointing those who are without hope to the one who is our hope, Jesus. I'm here to serve you, pray for you, help you any way that I can. Be blessed this day as you find that balance in your life God has called us to have, to be the best we can for Him!