Finding Balance

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

For the past several weeks, we’ve been addressing the issue of Love and how we can achieve a place here at HeartSong Church that is accepting, forgiving, and supporting place for all who call themselves Christians and also all who are searching for the God that we know and love.

Now over the next few weeks we are going to talk about balance, and the simple thought that if we can find balance in everything we do in our lives God will bless us. We must learn to remember that it is all about keeping our focus on the end goal. With everything we do within our Faith journey it is about the end goal. We must find a way to always allow ourselves to stay focused and to stay balanced within all we do. And just like with this pvc pipe once we take our eyes off the end we lose our control.


An early Television talent show once featured a man who could keep over twenty plates spinning on dowel rods at once. As viewers watched, the man ran frantically back and forth between plates spinning them just before they fell off the stick. I’ve often thought that life, at times, was a little like keeping several spinning plates at one time—time consuming, exhausting, and not very fulfilling. The question before us is how can we find focus in the middle of the spinning plates of life.


GOD IS OUR FOCUS

We need to have something in our lives to live for, and perhaps to die for. Olympic athletes go for the gold. Successful business people are single-minded in their pursuit of their goal. Not surprisingly, couples who make their relationship the priority in their lives usually have a marriage made in heaven (but crafted on earth), and strong families are spawned from making family a top priority.

The Scriptures identify a different priority than any of these for the Christian. That priority is proclaimed in this passage of Deuteronomy, “Hear O Israel the Lord your God is one, and you shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and might.” The focus of the Christian, of you and me, is to love God and serve God in all that we say and do.

The Israelites would awake every morning and repeat this verse, reminding themselves of what they were to be about during the day. Orthodox Jews still do to this day.

This is not a call to be a pastor or a missionary in a far off third world country. This is a call to focus our lives and align all the activities of our lives in love and service of God. To find the perfect balance between our everyday life and the life God calls us to live. Our jobs are ways we love and serve God. Our relationships with others are ways we love and serve God. Our family is a way we love and serve God. Our leisure time is a way we love and serve God.

These activities and items need to be a part of our lives, however, they are never to be the primary focus of our lives. Our love and service of God always super-cedes them. It has to become the lead focus. How many times does someone we spend time with say something that we know goes against God and our Faith yet we often either don't say anything or worse we agree just to save face. God wants to be part of every moment of everyday and we have to give Him the chance.

SHARE THE FOCUS

I usually don’t tell anyone the my personal goals that I have, that way when I don’t achieve my goals people won’t ridicule me and tell me that I’m a failure. But there’s a flip side to this, however. If I do tell people a goal that I’m going after, I usually lose the effort to achieve the goal, because I have no one to hold me accountable. I know that may sound odd but I struggle to share my personal goals. But I want you to realize, I have no problem sharing goals for a large group or a team that I am part of but my personal goals I keep to myself. But i am learning that the more I talk about goals it keeps me focused and I am also learning that talking about my own balance helps keep me balanced and the writer of Deuteronomy instructs the people to impress these commandments on our children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road,when you lie down and when you get up.” We must share with them the end goal.

Our focus can be a wonderful way to nurture the faith of our children as we share with them how we see our work, our volunteer activities, even our leisure activities as ways we love and serve God.

I want to tell you a story about Al Braca and how he shared with his wife Jeannie and son Christopher, that he really didn’t like his job as a bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald, but he felt he was called there to be a witness to his co-workers. He was at his job on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center on September 11th. After instructing an MCI operator to tell his family that he loved them, he ministered to his fifty co-workers in the horrific moments before the tower’s collapse. Sharing his focus kept Al focused, nurtured the faith of his family, and touched the lives of his co-workers.

One of the greatest temptations we have is to be closet Christians. We keep our faith to ourselves so that no one will be able to criticize us if we don’t measure up to his or her expectations or ours. Our silence virtually guarantees our failure. Do our friends know how we see our faith being lived out in what we do and say? Do our children understand how our work is a way we serve God? Do our parents know how we see being a student is a way to serve God, and how our future plans line up with what we believe God is calling us to do? Our faith does not need to be the topic of every conversation, but neither should it be the one topic that we avoid. Our end goal must be shared. Our determination and focus must be shared.



DAILY REMINDERS

The writer of Deuteronomy further instructs his readers to, “Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

Orthodox Jews have reminders, which are leather bands around their arms and a headband and box on their head to remind them of the focus of their lives.

We use focus items at various times in our lives. Some of us have family pictures on our desks at work. They help us answer the question, “Why do I put up with this junk?” A team logo reminds us of where our allegiance is during baseball, football, basketball, or hockey seasons. Uniforms remind us of the school we attend, or the company for whom we work.

Religious symbols often times serve the same purpose. A cross on our desk, or a religious theme screensaver helps us focus on our primary goal. Saying grace before meals reminds us of God’s grace and our response of love. Communion reminds us of the blood Jesus shed on the cross for us. Symbols help us keep our focus throughout our days. It helps is keep our eyes on the end goal. And when the world begins to weigh us down to the point of crumbling, it allows us to remain in balance with the world around us but it does not allow us to conform to what the world is pressing on us.

CONCLUSION

Balance does not necessary come easy to our lives. Sometimes it takes hard work. Other times it takes the incorporation of simple ideas into our lives.

Focus contributes to the balance of our lives, and balance enables us to experience the abundant life that is ours through Christ Jesus.

Amen