Devotion: Balance Revisited

Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life  --Deuteronomy 4:9

So how is balance in your life going?  Back in March I wrote a devotional at a very transitional time in my life when I had first started this blog.  This past February, my family moved into a house that started as a dream four years prior.  Building this house has been a season where God has taught me many things about my faith through the symbolism of this process.  I’ve shared before that what He showed me seemed to be a perfect fit for the title of my blog.  During the routine of the school year, the direction from Him that came of this time with God about balance was really clicking. 

For those of us in Washington there are a lot of jokes about the weather right now.  Is it really summer?  For me it is because school is out.  A teacher’s calendar really goes September-August, not January-December like the rest of the world.  Along with school letting out came the foolish assumption that the pace of my day would be relaxing and leisurely; that rest would automatically come with the lack of routine. 

The last few weeks there has been this low-grade anxiety in my soul.  Something simmering below the surface that hasn’t seemed quite right.  I’ve lost patience easily and snapped at those in my family.  Never quite able to relax.  Feeling like something is missing.  I realized that the anxiety is a symptom that there is something not quite right in my life, a God-thing He is trying to tell me.  So after praying for insight He answered from the message of Deuteronomy above.  You did not guard your heart daughter.  You have forgotten the balance I told you to have in your life.  Proverbs 4:23 says it this way: Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.  The lesson is this, in the process of listening to God and doing what He says, it is often we forget to remember His words and guard ourselves from losing them.  Jesus tells this story through the parable of the seeds and soil in chapter 8 of Luke.  If we aren’t careful, the things that we hear will get chocked out by life’s demands and in my case our tendency to not protect His words from getting chocked out by the busy pace of life.

God told me more about this by a podcast by Chip Ingrim I listened to recently called A Word to the Overworked, Overwhelmed, and Over-committed.  In this series, Chip is teaching the 10 commandments and how they are God’s boundaries for us to have abundant life.  Just the title seemed to grab at my heart.  During a recent trip to Boulder my college-roommate commented that she is amazed at how many things I am involved in.  After my time with God last March I was feeling in the right place and at peace with my activity load.  Yet as I forgot to guard this Sabbath time with God, my plate got too full and quickly beyond my reach.  He showed me that we have to budget time like we do money.  He wants one day not from us, but for us.  And like most things it’s really about faith; if you manage with your time the way God wants, it’s showing you trust Him to provide enough to get everything done.  Let’s look together at the things about Sabbath that God showed me through Chip’s message.

To prepare you heart for this time I suggest listening to What Joy (Psalm 146) by Sarah Emerson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA9twB7UsYU , for to practice Sabbath we must have confidence in Him alone!  The result of trusting in Him is joy and peace…

1.        Look back in your journal and what God had spoken to you previously about balance.  Has summer tripped up your good intentions? 

2.       Are there any new things that have been added to your plate?  Prayfully bring these things to God and ask Him to speak into your commitments.

3.       Sabbath:

God’s example to us: Read Genesis 2:1-4.  Why did God rest?  Was it because He was tired and needed a break?  The Hebrew word here is shabath and means to cease, desist, and stop.  Not to sleep or be renewed.  God did not stop because He needed to recharge but to enjoy.  What words in verse 3 of this passage show what God considered this day to be?

God’s provision:  Is the Ten Commandments the first place God mentions Sabbath?  Read Exodus 16:21-30.  What is God trying to teach the Israelites He will do if they stop from their labor?

God’s sign you are His: Read Exodus 20: 4-6.  Why does God give the commandments?  Now read Exodus 20:8-11.  What does the command say? 

God’s gift:  The Sabbath is a boundary for our tendency to work unceasing.  It is a gift to us, not meant to rob us of our time but to renew us emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  How do you spend this gift?  Here are some examples of what Jesus said about the Sabbath; read Mark 3:2-6, Luke 6:1-5.  How you spend your day with God is His business.  The Pharisees were very legalistic about the Sabbath because breaking it was punishable by death (Exodus 31:14).  But in Luke 6 Jesus says he is the Lord of the Sabbath.  Read Jeremiah 6:16, and Mathew 11:29.  If you are seeking rest, ask the Lord what Sabbath looks like for you. 

I hope that as you study and seek, God will give you true and deep abiding rest in Him!