Ecclesiastes 3:1

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under

the heaven:

1 Corinthians 14:33
For God is not the author of confusion [disorder], but of peace…

Proverbs 28:2
…by a man of understanding and knowledge the state
[balance] thereof shall be prolonged.

GOD WANTS US TO LIVE BALANCED LIVES

The entire world is based on this principle of balance. The world of

nature is perfectly balanced. The earth is tilted at a certain angle
and rotates at a certain number of miles per hour without any
vibration. If the world were a little bit closer to the sun we would
burn up and if it were a few miles further away from the sun we
would freeze to death. The only global warming to worry about is
when fire and brimstone again fall from the sky! Until then, the
world is in balance.

In nature, the ecologists study the ecosystems where the food chain
and the checks and balances in nature take care of each other. And
speaking of checks and balances…there’s financial balance we are in
need of.

In your body, doctors say that when you get sick, it is an imbalance
in your body. Health comes when your body is restored to
balance. The red and white corpuscles are balanced and your
hormones are balanced…ok, sometimes they aren’t!

All through your life, in everything we try to juggle, it all focuses

toward equilibrium -- the principle of balance. And God wants our
personal lives to be balanced.

There is a problem that I see all the time in people I counsel.

Probably the most common problem I encounter is this problem of
imbalance. Imbalance is a disease that has many different
symptoms, but the root is the same. You can be imbalanced in
anything. Sleeping? Yes. Eating? Yes. Work? Yes. Play?
Yes. Everything. You can be imbalanced in the way you use your
time, in hobbies, in anything. The problem is that most of us have a
tendency to work on our public lives and let our private lives
slide. We work on how we look and how we smile and how we talk,
but people don't see your private life, so you sometimes let that
slide.

People's lives are like poor photographs: over-exposed and

underdeveloped. I think that's true. A lot of lives are
overexposed. Everybody sees us and knows us and we have
contacts with a lot of people, but our private lives are
underdeveloped.

Problems when your personal life is not balanced. Two things

happen:

1. Frustration

Last summer at the library we took the kids to see a juggler, and he
had those poles to balance dishes on. He'd start spinning the dish
ntil it was perfectly twirling and balanced. Then he would take
another pole and dish and start that. Then another and
another. The problem was, that about the time he got down to
number nine, number one started to fall off. So he'd run back real
quick and get that one going... then he'd run back and start
another...

I thought, “A lot of people live their lives that way”. They go from
this to that. They work on this area of their life a little bit and then
they stop and work on that area of their life a little bit. Then
another area. It's frustrating. Just about the time you get one thing
in balance, the other one starts to fall off. Can I get a witness?

Frustration is a result of imbalance in your personal life.

 2. Fatigue

You get tired when your life is out of balance. Anybody who's ever
bought a car or a new set of tires knows that when you buy new
tires, you need to get them balanced. If the tires on your car are not
balanced, you're going to have a bumpy ride. There are going to be
vibrations. The car doesn't handle the shocks and bumps so well.

That's what happens in your own life. If you get an imbalanced tire,
eventually it will rub in the wrong place. You get a a bald spot [some
of you guys have unbalanced heads, evidently!] and it will blow
out. Likewise in your life, you will get rubbed the wrong way and
eventually have a big blow out. Tires blowout but people burn out
because of imbalance. Just like a tire that is out of balance wears
the wrong way, when your life is imbalanced you wear out much
quicker. You get tired.

What does the Bible have to say about being balanced? Does it
have anything to say? Yes!

Luke 2:52 we see an example of Jesus Christ. Jesus was the most
perfectly balanced person. "And Jesus increased in wisdom and
stature and in favor with God and man." Jesus Christ grew in these
areas. He grew in wisdom. That means He grew intellectually. He
grew in stature. That means He grew physically. He grew in favor
with God. That means He developed spiritually. He grew in favor
with man. That means He developed socially. He was a perfect
picture of balanced humanity.

There are five areas of your personal life that you need to keep in
balance. We're going to talk about you, your own personal life,
because if it gets out of balance, it affects everything else.

1. We Need To Have Mental Balance.

Romans 12:2
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Or, "Don't let the world squeeze you in its mold.”

What are you transformed by? Your willpower? No. By working real
hard? No. "...by the renewing of your mind." What you think about
affects your life and you need mental balance. The Bible says "As a
man thinketh in his heart, so is he." We need balance.

How do you have balance? You balance it by screening the things

that come into your mind. You just don't allow anything to come
into your thought life indiscriminately. You maintain balance by
choosing what you're going to think about. Jesus said, "When you
know the truth, the truth will set you free." When you fill your mind
with truth, you will find freedom in your lifestyle. Freedom comes by
having the right kind of thoughts. True thoughts. Mental balance.

2. We Need To Have Physical Balance.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
19
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your
own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your
body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

Do you glorify God in your body? We need physical balance. When

we don't take care of our bodies, it affects everything else. You
have to ask yourself: Am I constantly complaining about being
tired? "I'm so tired...I'm sick and tired of being sick and
tired." There's a way out. You maintain physical balance.

Peanuts Cartoon: Lucy is playing baseball. She's running out into

the outfield and saying, "I've got it! I've got it!" and the ball flies
over her head and plunks down right behind her. She's standing
there with her hand open. She throws the ball back to Charlie
Brown who's standing on the mound and says, "Sorry about that,
manager. My body just doesn't seem to want to do what my brain
tells it to." Charlie Brown says, "I can understand that--my body and
my brain haven't spoken to each other in years."

Physical balance. Get your life in shape. Get it all together.

Some of you say, "I could never get in shape. I'm too old. You can't
teach an old dog new tricks." I say, it's never too late to change!

Article by Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the man who invented aerobics: He

tells the story of a lady who was 46 years old and came to him. She
had back pains that were so terrible that she could not walk further
than 75 feet without having to sit down. She was stooped over and
couldn't stand up. As a result, it killed all of her social life, all of her
outings. She was in constant pain and disability. When she came to
Dr. Cooper, he advised that she have back surgery but she said, no,
she wanted to try something else. She began to walk on a
treadmill. She found that when she put the treadmill at a certain
angle she could walk without being in pain for about 25 seconds. So
she began to walk on the treadmill several times a day. Soon she
found she could lower the treadmill more and more until finally she
was walking on a flat surface without any pain for the first time in
months. Next she started to do some slow jogging with her walking
routine. Eventually she began jogging continuously from 3 miles to 5
miles to 10 miles at each outing. Today, this old woman has run 9
marathons with her best time being 3 hours and 3 minutes, a great
time for any woman or man of any age. You can change if you want
to.

3. We Need To Have Spiritual Balance

That's part of your personal life. 2 Peter 3:18 says "Grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." You do
two things to grow as a Christian: You grow in grace and you grow
in knowledge of Jesus Christ. You have intellectual growth -- you
know about the content of the Bible. You also grow in grace -- that's
cultivating an intimate relationship, and enjoying God.
A lot of people grow in knowledge. They know about God. They
know the books of the Bible. They've memorized verses. They know
who Nebuchadnezzar is. They know that an epistle is not the wife of
an apostle. Noah’s wife was not Joan of Ark! They know facts, but
they don't grow in grace. You've got to have balance in your spiritual
life.

4. We Need To Have Emotional Balance

Galatians 5:22-23
22
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such
there is no law.

Here we have a picture of a perfect emotionally balanced

person. These nine qualities are the qualities of emotional
stability. When you're emotionally stable you're not blown away by
a crisis.

It's a picture of Jesus. Jesus was love, joy, peace, patience... all
those things wrapped up into one.

Are you an emotionally balanced person? Do you have a tendency

to worry constantly? Are you a moody person? Do you let your
moods go up and down? Are you mastered by your moods rather
than managing your moods? Do you get depressed?

I think emotional balance is a combination of confidence and

contentment. You're confident and contented and you are
emotionally stable in your life.

5. We Need To Have Social Balance.

I'm talking about your relationships. You can have everything right
in your life and if your relationships are lousy, well…life stinks. You
can be a millionaire, you can be popular, you can be well known and
successful, but if you've got people that you're at odds with, life is
tough. So you need social balance in your life.

Romans 12:16
Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but
condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.

Or, "Live in harmony with one another." I looked up the word

"balance" in Webster's dictionary. It says the definition is this,
"When all of the parts are in harmony." When all of your
relationships are in harmony, there is social balance.

I can't impress on you enough the importance of this balance.

Article from Readers' Digest called "Seven Secrets of Peak

Performance": Dr. Charles Garfield is the professor of the University
of California Medical School in San Francisco. He's the head of a
research institute called Peak Performance Center. They studied
1500 outstanding achievers in all walks of life -- business, athletics,
education, every area of life. They were looking for common
denominators. What is it that makes the difference between a
person who's a super success and another person who tries their
best but they just get mediocre results? What's the difference? Are
there any characteristics, or common denominators of peak
performance people?

Yes, there are seven of them. The number one characteristic of the
top achievers in the world is that they lead a well-rounded life.
They're balanced. High achievers, we often hear, are extremists.
They spend all their time on one thing. Garfield says that's a
misconception. High performers, in contrast, are willing to work
hard but within strict limits. For them, work is not everything. When
Garfield interviewed top executives in ten major industries he found
that they knew how to relax, they could leave their work at the
office, they prized close friends and family life, and they spent a
healthy amount of time with their children and intimates. They
were balanced.

Another article from June, 1985 issue of Successmagazine:

A doctor, for the past 26 years, studied 5000 professional men and
women. Since 1959, he interviewed these 5000 people at least
twice a year. He's written two books -- one about men and the
other about women. He talks about how women who sacrificed
their personal life for a career are imbalanced.

The interviewer asks, "You say that ambitious women have

been sold a bill of goods? How?"

His Answer: "They have been told that life is a choice between
a career and a satisfying personal life, but my study over 26 years
found that to be hogwash. The woman who pours herself into her
career and shelves her personal life eventually suffers in her career."

The whole article talks about this principle of balance. At the

end the interviewer says, "Basically what you're saying is that
anytime, any one part of your life becomes all important,
everything, including that part, crumbles."

Answer: "That's an astonishing find in its own way because ever

since we were children we've been told to concentrate single-
mindedly and to keep ourselves focused."

Balanced living. Balance in your personal life.

How do you get started? Here’s three suggestions out of the Word
of God on how to get started:

Proverbs 14:8
The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of
fools isdeceit.

Proverbs 14:15
The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well
to his going.
Wise people think about where they're headed. They give thought
to their ways. They consider where they're going. Fools deceive
themselves.

How do you get started in balancing your life?

STEP #1: Take Inventory

Look at your life. Say, "Where am I in balance? Where am I out of

balance?" Look at yourself. Evaluate it. Do a self-
examination. Have a spiritual, mental, emotional, social, physical
check-up and evaluate your lifestyle. Proverbs is saying it's wise to
analyze. Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

How do you avoid coming to the end of your life saying, "If
only..." Do it by stopping in the middle of life and analyzing it,
looking at it, evaluating and saying, "Where am I out of
balance? What's missing?"

Do you remember the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15? The
prodigal son went out and spent all of his money, had a good time
with wine, women and song, but he ran out of his inheritance and
ends up living in a pigsty eating pig food. In Luke 15:17 there's the
turning point in his life. It says this: "He came to himself." He said,
"What am I doing here? I'm going to go home."

Have you done that? Have you come to your senses? Have you
said, "I'm not going to waste the rest of my life? I'm going to make it
count. I'm going to get my life in balance." This is the season to get
in balance -- socially, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally --
all of these areas. I challenge you, as homework this week, go home
and do a personal check-up from the neck up, and down!

Ask yourself: "Mental balance. Am I mentally sharper than I was

five years ago? If not, why not? What am I going to do about it?" I
know a lot of Christians who are mentally flabby. They turn on the
TV, put their mind in neutral and watch the boob tube. Leaders are
readers!

How about physical balance? "Am I always complaining of a lack of

energy?" Am I always fatigued? Do I pay no regard to what I eat or
how I exercise or how much sleep I get. Do I disregard my physical
condition totally. Am I going to do anything about it? Am I a
workaholic or do I take time off for physical restoration?

How about spiritual balance? Is my first reaction to a problem

to pray, or do I usually use that as a last resort? Do I take time for
God? Do I trust Him? Do I really know Him? Do I read the Bible on
a regular basis? Am I a “duty” Christian, still just Sunday morning
only? Am I choosing to grow spiritually?

Emotional. Do I worry a lot? Am I a moody person? Am I

mastered by my moods? Do I loose my temper at the slightest little
thing? Am I irritable? Do I get depressed easily?

Social balance. Who can I count on as a genuine friend? Who

can count on me as a genuine friend? Proverbs says to have friends
you must show yourself friendly!

I encourage you to ask your mate to evaluate you, or your s.s.

teacher or Pastor. Now we're getting serious! The fact is, all of us
have blind spots. I think I'm in balance. You think you're in
balance. We all do. But other people say, "That guy is imbalanced!"

The Bible says there is safety and wisdom in a multitude of

counselors. So when in doubt, check it out. Ask your spouse how
you're doing -- emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally. Get a
second opinion.

STEP #2 Write Down A Plan Of Action

We plan every other area of our lives except our personal life.
Balance does not come by accident. You've got to work at it. It's not
automatic. You plan and set goals and say specifically what you're
going to do.

Ephesians 5:15
See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

Don't be foolish in the way you use your time. Be careful. Analyze
it. "Make the most of every opportunity." How do you make the
most of every opportunity? By planning for it. By preparing for
it. When opportunity comes, you're ready for it. You develop a plan
of action. Don’t just prioritize your schedule—SCHEDULE your
priorities! Write down the plan of action.

One of the things that make balance in your life is habits. We are
creatures of habit. We need to break bad habits, start new ones,
because that's part of getting in balance -- getting rid of the bad
habits and developing new ones.

But you can't do it on your own. Will power is not enough. You
need more.

STEP #3 Establish Christ At The Center Of Your Life

Ill.—Wheel, spokes, and hub.

Don’t compartmentalize your spiritual life. Don’t take this lesson on

balance and try to use it to rationalize God being in balance, or just
having a measure of Him.

Just like a wheel has to have a hub, your life has to have something
to center on. You will always be out of balance until you get
something -- one thing -- that your life centers on. You can center it
on making money, but that will get you out of balance. You can
center it on retiring and recreation, but that will get you out of
balance.
In a wheel, all the power comes through at the point of the hub and
then it's distributed out to the differing spokes that turn the wheel.
Likewise, in your life, when you put Christ in the center of your life,
the power comes through that and goes out to all of these other
areas and gives you balance. That's why the Bible says, "Seek ye first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness..." and all of these things
will be brought into focus, into balance.

Sometimes I hear someone say, "I have a problem. My life is falling

apart." How do you put a life that is falling apart back
together? What holds it together? I asked the person, "Would you
like to know the glue that would put your life together?"

Colossians 1:15
Who is the image of the invisible God…

You don't see God. That's why He sent Jesus so you could see Him.

Colossians 1:16-17
16
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are
in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or
dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by
him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all
things consist. [glue!]

If your life is falling apart, it's because Jesus Christ is not at the
center to hold all things together. Put Him at the center and watch
Him pull it back together. Think about an atom with a nucleus of
protons and neutrons swirling around and on the outside electrons
swirling around it. What holds the atom together? Jesus Christ. He
holds all things together in the world and in your life. Bring Him any
broken pieces in your life and see how He can miraculously put it all
together!

The bottom line in finding balance--Jesus Christ wants to be the

center of your life. You can start over, you can have a new
beginning, you can have a clean slate and get your personal life in
balance.

[outline and some source materials courtesy Rick Warren]

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