Question 1

What is balance?

Accepted Answer

Matthew 22:37-40Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”Knowing this greatest commandment is not the same as doing it. Putting God first in our emotional lives, our spiritual lives, and our thought lives requires that we ask ourselves frequently, “Am I doing this for the right person and the right reason?” Our relationship with God provides the only focal point that can keep everything else in its proper, balanced place.Ecclesiastes 3:1For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.As the verses that follow this one illustrate, healthy living consists of doing things at their proper time. Many things in life can’t be put off to a more convenient time. For instance, we can’t wait until our children grow up to get around to parenting them. Balanced living includes doing what we should be doing when we should be doing it.Matthew 6:33-34“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”God assures us that he will give us what we need so we can do everything he calls us to do. We will find true peace and contentment when we realize we don’t have to do everything all at once—just those things God wants us to do right now. Then we can leave things undone, knowing that in God’s eyes we have done all we need to do.

Question 2

How can I live a balanced life?

Accepted Answer

Romans 8:6Letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.When we let the Spirit control the way we think, he will help us bring everything into balance, giving us life and peace. This involves acknowledging him in every situation and decision in life (see Proverbs 3:5-6) rather than assuming we can figure it out on our own.Psalm 37:34Put your hope in the Lord. Travel steadily along his path.Trusting God in everything helps us keep our lives in balance. When we are traveling steadily, we don’t consider the stumbles and difficulties of life to be the end of the road for us but rather the next leg of our journey, part of the lifelong experience of God’s work in us.Hebrews 13:5Be satisfied with what you have.Imbalance often comes into our lives when we become discontented with what we have and begin to anxiously pursue various desires. This shifts our focus onto ourselves, causing imbalance. Contentment frees us from this pursuit. If we cannot be satisfied with what we have right now, we will probably not be satisfied no matter how much more we add. Genuine satisfaction does not come from things, but from God.1 Corinthians 9:26-27I run with purpose in every step. . . . I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should.When we understand the work God has given us to do, we can focus on our purpose and remove distractions that throw our lives out of balance. God-centered living allows us to balance various activities that, as individual pursuits, could lead us astray.

Question 3

How did Jesus live a balanced life?

Accepted Answer

John 5:30“I can do nothing on my own. . . . I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.”Jesus’ life here on earth was willingly surrendered to his Father’s purposes. Since God created all life, he knows best how our lives should be lived. The Bible, God’s Word, illustrates for us how to live a life of balance in accordance with God’s will.Luke 2:52Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.Jesus grew and matured in the various essential dimensions of life: physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. Focusing on only one or two of these areas can throw the others out of balance. Healthy living accounts for all of these.John 2:1-2The next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration.Part of Jesus’ whole and healthy life included his awareness of and participation in celebrations. He understood and encouraged joy in every circumstance of life, including a local wedding ceremony.Mark 6:31-32Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone.Jesus saw the importance of spending time with people, and he likewise knew the importance of rest and reflection. Life should have a balance of work and rest, of investment in people and quiet time for restoration. Balance assumes full participation in opposite extremes, not some kind of half-hearted middle ground. A life of only rest or only activity leads to either dullness or burnout. The balance between a quiet place and a crowd’s noise isn’t a constant low roar. Rather, it includes healthy engagement and refreshing retreats.Luke 5:16Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.Consider the word often in this verse. Jesus modeled a life balanced by involvement and withdrawal, action and reflection, mission and meditation, effort and spiritual reenergizing. This pace allowed him to remain open to God’s direction instead of being distracted by continual human demands. Balance helps us realize that activities and even opportunities are not always God’s plan for us.

Question 4

How do I find the proper balance in life?

Accepted Answer

Ecclesiastes 7:13Accept the way God does things, for who can straighten what he has made crooked?Because of God’s ultimate sovereignty, we must be willing to realize not only that there are some things we cannot change, but also that God’s will might be for things to stay as they are.Proverbs 12:3Wickedness never brings stability, but the godly have deep roots.A balanced life moves in step with God. Our ability to find and maintain the proper balance in life depends on the depth of our relationship with God. Deep roots yield stability and direction.1 Peter 1:13Prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.Self-control, when combined with a willingness to act, yields a balanced life. As our way of thinking is transformed into Christ’s, our new perspective helps us to exercise self-control in our life choices.Romans 12:4-5Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.Balanced living includes both accepting our individual responsibilities as a believer and benefitting from our essential connectedness to other followers of Jesus. Others need the help God has equipped us to provide, and we need the help God has equipped them to share with us.Psalm 119:3They do not compromise with evil, and they walk only in his [the Lord’s] paths.There is no balance or compromise between good and evil. Any attempt to mix them will always be evil. As one who trusts in God, we are better off when we focus on living in obedience to him (see Philippians 2:14-15).Titus 2:12We are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God.A balanced life consistently steers away from a self-centered lifestyle and its temptations to sin. Commitment to God, his instructions, and his standards provides a dependable moral compass.Psalm 127:2It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.A balanced life recognizes proper rest, sleep, quiet, and reflection as significant gifts from God. How long can we go without these things before we begin to feel unbalanced?

Question 5

What causes my life to become unbalanced?

Accepted Answer

James 3:14-16If you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.Life becomes unbalanced when we dwell on earthly problems and sinful desires rather than focusing on God’s wisdom. We must consider our habitual thought patterns when we set out to diagnose dysfunction in our lives.1 Timothy 6:9People who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.Making the pursuit of financial success the central focus of life always leads to unbalanced living.Hebrews 13:5Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”Feelings of discontent often result in an unbalanced life because they cause us to focus too much on what we cannot have, should not have, or will not have. It is important to meet our own needs for food, shelter, and clothing, but focusing too much on ourselves will cause us to neglect one of God’s greatest mandates to us: helping others who are in need. The more we focus on ourselves, the more dissatisfied we will become, because we can never get everything we want. As we balance meeting our needs with meeting the needs of others, we will find contentment and joy in being able to care for them.2 Corinthians 8:12-14Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly. And give according to what you have, not what you don’t have. Of course, I don’t mean your giving should make life easy for others and hard for yourselves. I only mean that there should be some equality. Right now you have plenty and can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal.Excess often reveals imbalance. Too much of anything means there is not enough of something else: Prioritizing accumulation of wealth can lead to a lack of generosity, but it’s also dangerous to give recklessly. Be wise in how you help others, but be willing and eager to help them.2 Peter 2:19They [false teachers] promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you.We are often tempted by promises of freedom, and that includes false promises. Our addictions are often the result of embracing false promises. Any addiction will steer our lives into a downward spiral. Anything that controls us—be it drugs, alcohol, work, or even a hobby—will knock our lives out of balance. Only God can control us without destroying us.

Question 6

What are the benefits of living a balanced life?

Accepted Answer

2 Peter 1:5-7Make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.A balanced life can be characterized by a wide variety of good qualities that reinforce one another. The sequence in these verses begins with a focus on God’s promises and progresses through a long-term development of faith, moral living, increasing knowledge, growing self-control, expanding endurance, and deepening love. God’s promises motivate us toward transformed lives and godly character.Jeremiah 6:16This is what the Lord says: “Stop at the crossroads and look around. Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls.”Jeremiah lamented that the people of Judah refused to listen to God’s wisdom and change course even as they were on the brink of ruin because of their sin. When the Holy Spirit controls our minds and directs our lives, we live in balance; that is, we live with a proper perspective on life. This includes pausing and observing at moments of decision, discerning what God would have us do, and living out the wisdom we discover. Recognize that the peace and contentment this creates in our souls comes from God.