Balance

by Bob A Clifton

This last month my fascination in the Bible keeps coming back to my man Peter. Something about Peter and how willing he was to throw himself out there and see what comes back in return. My bible reading last week led me to another story of him in John 13. Jesus was enjoying an evening meal with his disciples. Jesus knew his time was drawing near and to better demonstrates for his disciples what it means to be a servant, he took to washing their feet. First up, Simon Peter, come on over you are the first contestant on “wash which foot?” Peter in all his intelligence asks “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus realizing this seemed confusing to him explains that you probably won’t get the significance now, but in the future you will. In an abrupt fashion Peter tells him no. A New Testament bible scholar interprets the Greek as Peter saying “no, not never”.

I picture life like a teeter totter sometimes. Early in Christian walk I craved black and white explanation of the scriptures. “What does this mean” was a question I asked often. Followed up by, what exactly am I supposed to do in this situation”? I wanted the answer to fall on one side of the teeter totter or the other. Up or down, black or white, ying or yang. At this point in Peter’s story I get the idea that he is pretty adamant that he doesn’t want his feet washed. So persistent, he told Jesus no way!

Picking the story back up, Jesus reminds Peter that if he does not wash his feet Peter will have no part with me, the “me” being Jesus. It clicks for Peter at this point. And for Peter there is no way he is going to get left out of Jesus plan. So instead of saying “OK Jesus, wash away on the feet”. No Peter goes to the other side of the teeter totter with “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well”. In other words “come on with it”.

In the process of growing in my maturity, I can see plenty of situations where I went overboard. Sometimes I struggle with my prayer life. I remember leaving a bible study that talked about the importance of daily prayer. Well at that time I had no prayer life, so surely if I go pray three times a day I can make up for never praying. I may set out to fast for a meal and decide the only way too really get through to God is fast for the whole day. I have set out to volunteer, but instead of serving within my limits I find myself visiting with people or at church 4 nights out of the week.

What does it mean to strike a balance? Shawn’s last blog does a great job in expressing the need to take care of our self. In order to take care of ourselves we will need to strike the right balance. This issue of balance has surfaced again as our church looks at the spiritual disciplines. Taking a close look at these again has caused me to examine what are priorities in life. Some of the time I found that I was wasting was being wasted to worry or unstructured time where I have nothing to do.

How do you examine your balance? One thing I like to do is look at them through the lens of five different categories; Intellectual, Physical, Spiritual, Emotional, Economical. Taking a close look at these will often reveal chinks in the armor that could be better examined to determine how to correct and find more balance. I also like to ask close friends. A good friend of mine has been pressing up against me about my schedule for the last couple weeks. Trusting that he is not there to abuse me I have submitted my schedule to the microscope to get clarity from what he is saying. He was able to bring clarity to odds and ends that I could not put my finger on. Ask your wife? What does she think about the way you use your time?

I think we can learn from Peter. As we see Peter’s ministry develop in the book of Acts we find that he understands balance more as he matures in his faith.