Living A Balanced Life

"Definitions of Balance"

An even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady.

A condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.

Wisdom is the principal thing therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting get understanding." Proverbs 4:7

It seems like once a year God has me do a balanced living check. When I was 40 years old I had a wake up call due to a health scare. God used that to take me on a journey where I had to look at my life and make some changes.

At the time I was stressed out about so MANY things that I thought I had to do and had to put up with. God used my doctor to tell me that I needed to make a list of things that I could remove out of my life that were causing me unnecessary stress. Some of those things were making me physically sick.

The doctor also felt led to explain to me the difference between the normal stresses of life and the unnecessary stresses. Explaining that we all have to learn how to deal with the normal stress that life brings at times in a healthy way. Explaining it was part of growing and maturing as a person, but there is also the unnecessary stress that we allow in our life that is actually hurting us that we need to say "NO" I'm not allowing it anymore.

So my journey began in learning what I needed to remove from my life and also add to my life to become the healthy person God was calling me to be. It was years of practice and not always recognizing right away what I needed to let go of.

Now at 57 years old I look back on those days and can clearly see how far I have come. I keep learning on this journey, so of course sometimes I can miss some things and have to get back on the right track. But for the most part, I do not live a life that includes a lot of unnecessary stress. This year I had to say no again to some things that crept in that were hurting me, I'm thankful that I did.

Often times we can think of a balanced life as putting in the exact amount of time in everything we do. But that is not how it works.

When you look at the second definition of balance that I shared above it says, "a condition in which different elements are equal OR in the correct proportions" AND one definition of the word proportions is "adjust or regulate (something) so that it has a particular or suitable relationship to something else"

When God told me that I needed to focus on balancing my life out a bit because the way that I was going back then was creating unnecessary stress and that it was going to hurt me greatly. I started to seek his wisdom in how to practice living that balanced life. And what hit my heart was putting things in correct proportions and getting rid of some things.

Yes, in life most of us experience those times where things are so out of proportion that we need some adjusting for sure. But if we keep our priorities in check the way that God wants us to, those moments when things become unbalanced won't do the damage to us mentally and physically as they would if we lived unbalanced lives consistently.

Unnecessary stress will in fact catch up to you and it will come out and it will damage you in many different ways. So it's a good lesson to learn early on in life.

A healthy balance of conflict, opposition, rejection, self care, helping others, saying NO, will produce a balanced life without being weighed down by unnecessary stress.

Conflict

Healthy Conflict is good for us. It grows us in learning how to communicate with one another and how to work out problems. Healthy conflict is apart of a healthy relationship and helps us grow in becoming healthy people. At times healthy conflict can be a little stressful, but it's not a bad kind of stress.

Unhealthy Conflict looks a lot different. It causes unnecessary stress that can make you sick. In those cases, it can look like one person just tearing down another person constantly. Only talking to them when they have a need, only communicating when it's convenient for them, not really wanting the person to be apart of their life but rather just wants them to be there if they need them. Often times the person has no desire to have a two sided loving relationship.

All of the above can cause a person to be crushed under the weight of unnecessary stress due to the fact that they keep chasing the people that treat them that way. It will make them sick. Often we chase because we think at some point, the person that we love will desire to love us back. And will desire a healthy close relationship with us, but that is not always the case. Sometimes we have to stop and adjust and remove ourselves from that situation. If we don't our heart and our mind will become sick.

Those situations attack your mind to where you start to not value who you are in Christ. You are to walk as the person that God says you are. So it is best to remove yourself from those people so you can continue on in becoming who you are called to be without putting yourself in a state of living in unnecessary stress that will attack you physically.

When God opened my eyes to some things regarding unhealthy conflict and gave me some instructions on how to fix that part of my life with his help. One thing that I had to do was remove myself from certain people and say no to one sided relationships. It has been a challenge at times.

But I have found that I feel better, mentally and physically. AND that I continue to grow as a person in the right ways when I quit chasing what hurts my growth.

I love to hang out with people who challenge me to be all that God has called me to be, who would tell me the truth if I was falling into sin, and who want to invest in a relationship with me the same as I want to invest in relationship with them. It brings peace to my heart and takes away unnecessary stress, and keeps me healthy Spiritually and Physically.

Opposition

I have heard many different men and women preach some good messages on opposition that helped me greatly.

Some of the opposition that comes at us is satan trying to stop us from doing what God has called us to do. (I don't like to capitalize satan)

Some of the opposition that comes at us is from God trying to stop us from doing what he has "NOT" called us to do.

We will find out which one it is when we seek God and ask, he will tell us. And in both of those cases, we will grow and learn something through them.

Rejection

I included rejection, because on my journey, at times how I have handled rejection has in fact caused my life to get unbalanced.

Most of us have heard the phrase:"Rejection Is Either Protection Or Redirection".

I have found that to be true that most of the time time, rejection fits into one of those categories.

If we are rejected because of a certain behavior we have, for example, if every time we are in a conflict situation we start yelling at people and they reject us, and don't want to communicate with us anymore. Then that is on us. We need to get some self control, and ask God to help us change that about our character. So it's Redirection.

But often we will get rejected when we speak truth in love as well. And those we are speaking to reject us because they don't want to hear truth. That rejection could be a matter of us being redirected now that we have spoken the truth or protection, depending on the situation.

Then there are those times when we think we want something and we go after it with all we have and often getting our lives so unbalanced because it becomes all we think about. We finally get rejected, then we find out later that God was actually protecting us from something. If we were given what we were going after it would have hurt us greatly.

And then of course at times we are unjustly rejected by people. We were actually doing what God said to do, but sometimes other people miss seeing what God was actually trying to use us for in their lives but they rejected it. In those cases, it still falls into the category of redirection after the rejection.

Self Care & Serving

It is damaging to tell people that they don't need to take care of themselves by taking breaks when they need to, resting when they need to, eating healthy, exercising, saying the word "NO" when necessary.

Telling people that produces the same kind of damage as it would If you told a person that they never need to do anything, only think about themselves, sit around on the couch and watch tv all day everyday, never get outside, say no to everyone who needs your help and only care about your own needs in all your relationships.

Self care matters. But the world has tried to turn self care into some twisted meaning that has created many selfish people who are not willing to grow in anything or be there for others because it's uncomfortable. OR has taght people if you need rest you are somehow weak.

Healthy Self Care

Health self care is what we should strive for. It's about BALANCE. Jesus had boundaries and took care of himself. I have heard many testimonies from many different evangelist who have all shared how they used to think they could just go and go and go and not be affected by it. Most of them ended up learning the hard way that it was important to take time to rest, to take time for a mental break and do whatever else that brought refreshing to them. And often they learned the lesson by getting sick or from other events that happened in their life. We can all be like that at times.

Helping people in various ways, being there when they call. Pursuing relationship with people is good and loving. BUT when they don't acknowledge publicly that they are in a relationship with you. When they mention all kinds of good things that are happening in their life and they mention other people in their life but they never acknowledge you publicly as apart of their life and they keep their interaction with you a secret and also talk bad about you. RED FLAG! Betrayal is coming.

Turn away from those people, it will bring unnecessary stress and your life will start to become unbalanced and it will eventually affect you in ways that you were not expecting. It is also very important when it comes to helping others to make sure that you are helping people that also want to help themselves. Pouring everything that you have into people who are not willing to do some of the work to grow themselves, will in fact drain you physically.

Also, do not give up your relationship with Jesus and participate in sin with other people to be accepted by them. Jesus willingly gave up his life for you so that you would have a chance to choose him and have eternal life. No acceptance from other people, is worth giving up what Jesus did for you.

What I am learning as I get older is that most of those people that reject you because of the fact that you serve Jesus and get mad that you wont sin with them or celebrate their sin with them, will not be there for you in your moments of sickness or despair, Choose Jesus he will be there!

Embrace the areas that you need to grow in. It is unhealthy to pretend that you do not need any growth and to run from change and to run from what God is trying to teach you.

When we choose a balanced life we are putting things in the places that they belong in. We are taking care of ourselves and we are focusing on being healthy spiritually and physically. We will find that we start surrounding ourselves with people who want to be around us and naturally stop chasing those that don't.

It can be a miserable life when everything is so unbalanced and chaotic. God did not create us for that kind of life.

In fact, on the new earth we will not be living the way that we live now. There will be this peaceful balance that will just automatically exist.The way it was intended in the garden of Eden.

Choose a balanced life for yourself, work hard, give, rest, and choose to be "Healthy Spiritually and Physically"

Mark 6:31

And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

Matthew 6:33

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.