Balance 101

Drawing by my daughter

Last week, I dedicated Friday to talking about balance.  I can give you a lot of advice about how to achieve balance at any certain point in your life, but in order to continually maintain balance, I think you have to go deeper than tips and tricks.  I don't want to just keep all of the plates successfully spinning in the air.  I want a sense of completeness, wholeness, peace, joy, purpose, life, and freedom in the midst of everything.  That's why I am looking for "soul balance".  I want it to be real and deep to my core. 

After "finding soul balance" for over a year, I've realized that I only feel balanced when I totally depend on God for my life and direction.  I can try to orchestrate my life and work and people so that everything fits together perfectly.  But I don't know what is around the corner in the next minute.  I feel balanced when I open my hands and recognize that only God, who created the world, can bring it back into the balance which he intended from the beginning.  I am learning to literally say, "God, what do you want me to do today?  And help me to do it."

It is only from this starting point that any of my other balance advice may help.

"There is only one will of God...in it there is established the freedom and the simplicity of all action." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer