I'm still tired of extremes, after sleeping on it. (And I am enjoying the comments so much! Keep them coming!)
I could live out any extreme I wanted - being sick of extremes in the body of Christ is not an issue of sour grapes for me. ("Sour grapes" is found in an Aesop's Fable...) There isn't much I don't have access to, other than a trip to the moon. I have a credit card with enough of a line of credit, I could go anywhere, or have any cosmetic procedure I wanted. I could sell a thing or two and do the same. I have a good laptop computer, now. It never crashes. I could spend a lotttt of time on this baby.
I have friends - dear and near friends. I can create and receive text messages. Those two facts alone could send me soaring into the World of Extremes, and those two facts alone account for a terrible lack of creative soul in people today - and I cannot let it happen to me. I'd die a slow death, spending multiplied moments typing with my thumbs and answering my cell phone.
I promise, you aren't really having a creative thought, when you're doing all that! You aren't tending a garden, writing an essay, or paying attention to a child. I'd almost say you are not living, but that would be a bit extreme, wouldn't it?
I have a Facebook page. I could sit for part of every day and peruse others days and others lives, or I could live my own day, and have my own life. A Facebook page not oft updated equals a life well lived. A blog that sits silent now and then, means the writer is a balanced human being. A blog that sits silent for weeks at a time means the writer probably shouldn't have started one in the first place.
I have a twelve pack of diet Coke at my beck and call, even as I type this. However, I might drink two today. I have good relationships with the up-and-coming generation. I could call any college kid in my church, and many outside my church, and be having lunch with someone in two hours flat. But I don't feel needy to prove how hip I am. The fact that these kids love me (yes, if you are almost thirty, you are still a "kid" to me - and I never thought I'd hear myself say that!), and the fact that they are willing to hang out at my house now and then fills me with enough satisfaction to be content. I don't have to be the older lady they roll their eyes at, secretly.
"Content" seems to be the watchword. It was the subject of the sermon in Harvest Church yesterday.
So, though I have the means to be extreme, and access to all the tools of extremity, all the friends, all the technology - somehow I manage to be content with limiting my access to all if it, taking what time and energy is left over, and investing it in being a whole, balanced woman.
"Balance" is a Biblical concept. Hear, once again, wise Old Solomon:
It is good that you grasp the one and do not let the other slip from your hand. For the one who fears God will end up with both of them. (Ec.7, again!)
God said it, not me. By avoiding extremes, I will end up with the best of both worlds.
I feel I already have.
11 comments:
Balance, that is a under-used and taken for granted word and concept.
Today esp. I believe, it is important for us as Christians, to live well balanced lives.
Balance reduces stress levels too!
Chariamatic's despise this concept because on one hand they say they believe in the power of God and yet they fret over whteher or not balance could rob it from them.
Figure that one out. Keep it up babe!
I loved BOTH your essays on "extremes." What a refreshing and timely perspective! I can testify to the fact that you live what you write. And I agree that living a simple, balanced, uncluttered life is the richest kind of life there is!!
Sheila said:
"Content" seems to be the watchword. It was the subject of the sermon in Harvest Church yesterday.
So, though I have the means to be extreme, and access to all the tools of extremity, all the friends, all the technology - somehow I manage to be content with limiting my access to all if it, taking what time and energy is left over, and investing it in being a whole, balanced woman.
WOW- This reminds me of the book;
Grace Plus Nothing. You have access to it all, freedom to do a great many things, freedom to persu many thing, but that doesn't mean its all good for you. There is a balance to it all. When you find the balance, you find your content.
Hmm.. Find the balance. WOW!
Perhaps Ecclesiastes should read "a time for extremes and a time for balance".
For example: there's nothing balanced about the last 10 minutes before birth! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
There's nothing balanced about " You Israelites, we're leaving Egypt tonight. You can have bread, but without the leaven...there's no time." "But I like leavened bread..."
There's nothing balanced about an old widow knocking up a judge late at night. "Oi widow, I'm in bed...leave it out !!!"
There's nothing balanced about being told you can go free unless you happen to make a fuss of being Roman. "There's a good lad Paul. We can forget all about this. Just don't mention you are Roman." "And what if I do?" "Well then we'd just have to take you to Rome and...." "I'm Roman I'm Roman I'm Roman. I said I'm Roman!!!"
And there's nothing balanced about being told " You know if you would just talk it over with me Jesus, I could let You go, You know. I'm Pilate after all."
Silence
Ok, we'll take you before the multitude then. But I did warn You.
I'm just bringing in a bit of balance Sheila and Tim
I honestly believe these examples are excellent.
May I share my view point?
To be able to handle the extremes God inevitably brings into your life, you bust be able to handle the balanced lifestyle.
Too many people focus on the extremes and as a result completely miss what God would have for them.
Extreme seasons come and go, balance is always needed in the inbetweens.. if you can't manage the balance lifestyle, how will you see into the extreme.
In extreme seasons you find yourself seeking God, but if you haven't been seeking in the middle, you won't have the ears to hear His voice, you've not been tuned to it.
Can you balance the changing of the seasons with grace?
Mid life crisis? -my definition-
A crisis of extremes vs balanced.
A young man can be extreme, with sports, and activity... but, you get older, you get responabilites,... can you move from the young extreme lifestyle to the balanced mid life lifestyle?
Balance, it is a good thing.
We're just too scared of it sometimes, we'd rather be entertained, busy, doing something...
Could it be considered extreme when Jesus came away in the garden before the crucifixion to pray?
Could it be that He also needed balance?
Chris, points well taken! I well know those "make or break" seasons...I feel as though I am IN ONE right now. But, like Hannah said, it is the balance in practical, daily areas that makes the extreme pressure more bearable.
Obedience to God will always feel extreme, I agree.
When God breaks out in the midst of His people, it will always get "unbalanced".
I am more addressing people whose *personalities* tend towards extremes...extreme emotion (er...medical profession sometimes calls that "bi polar" - ACK!) and this hhhhhhhhhuge over-attention to "self" in all its various forms.
Hope that makes sense! (I'm running a fever presently - not feeling too great, so I may not be making sense...)
Sheila,
I read and reread both these posts with interest.
I believe that there is a lot of wisdom in what you are saying but I have to admit that if balance is about what I do, not who I am in, than I have just placed myself back under law.
Women and men who search for their identity in external things are immature in Christ and don't yet realize who they are- so I love them where they are. The Holy Spirit grows them, not me.
About "spiritual gifts", so they are abused; look at the Corinthians. Paul brought it all back to love, didn't he? Love will not cause me to be critical of my brother.
If the Holy Spirit gives me "a Word" every Sunday that is balance. If He doesn't for six months that is balance, too.
I guess I think the Life Of Christ in us is the balance we are seeking and He will mature us if we focus on Him and not the things that keep us off balance.
Balance isn't what I do or don't do; balance is yielding to the Christ in me.
RJW,
I completely agree!
No one blog-post can include all aspects of what is a very multi-faceted line of thought - it would be soooooooooo long as to not ever get read.
I was writing on extremes. To do that, you have to write "extremely". You have to toss the point out in a punchy, succinct way. (Well, I try to be succinct - HA!)
Corinthians 13 is sandwiched between 12 and 14 (chapters on the gifts) for a reason - the gifts WORK by love. It isn't love to be so self aware that I strain and compete in the use of my gift. it is the straining and competing that makes a person unhealthily obsessive about many things in life.
If *God* gives me a word every gathering for six months straight, there'd be no reason to speak about the extremes of manufacturing a "word" for every gathering. But I've seen too many things manufactured - and that ain't grace either.
Extremes, in the way I speak of them, ARE entirely human in origin, and not "grace" at all.
I move heavily in the prophetic. I've had words upon words, for weeks (and at one point, months!) at a time, followed by seasons of stepping back to let others come along.
Your illustration is actually making my point - it is a lovely balance.
And all the freedom we enjoy here to present other points of view delights me to no end...
it would honor me if you keep it coming!!!!
Does this mean you'll be my BFF ? ;)
Absolutely. Can we hang out all day tomorrow and the next? Let's do lunch. Will you be my mentor? Can I pleeeeeze, please encroach upon all balanced boundaries, and start text messaging one or more of your children, too? I have to be their BFF too. That makes me hip.
Of course, I will have to step in, from time to time, and parent YOUR children, too. Please prepare them. I plan to critique them about things that are none of my business, and counsel them whether they ask me to or not, and shower them with unwanted attention.
Then, can I do everything you do, and go all the places you go? And bring MY kids with me??
What's your bra size? How much do you weigh?
Tell your kids to call me "aunt", regardless of the fact that we don't REALLY have an established history. Who cares that you've only known me a short time. What's "too short a time", between family???
I think everyone should blur the lines of family heritage, and toss around family titles like cheap candy at Mardi Gras. After all, we are the "family" of God!!!
If I am a few months or years older than you, why don't I be your "other mom" too??? Who cares that I have had no real, ongoing eternal impact on your life.
Let's do it!!!
:-)))))
See? Aren't extremes comforting? Don't they make you want to get EVEN CLOSER to me??
::chortling::
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