Thursday, June 30, 2011

How to Stop Living Life as a Plate Spinner

With all the roles you fulfill in your life, do you ever feel like one of those old plate spinners, trying feverishly to keep the plates from falling off the poles? I do. Problem with living as a plate spinner trying to find balance in life is that you end up always feeling guilty – some role in your life is ALWAYS not getting enough attention and threatening to fall off the pole!

That’s why I have been encouraged to view “living missionally” as an integrating concept in my life. From Mark 3:13-15 (I encourage you to stop now and read it!), we discover a “rhythm of grace” for living missionally – being with Jesus, and being sent by Jesus. Just as both breathing in and breathing out are essential to physical life, this two-fold rhythm of grace is necessary for our spiritual life. We become unhealthy if we spend all our time trying to be with Jesus in meditation, reflection, spiritual retreat, etc. without the matching rhythm of being sent by Jesus to do Kingdom work. Likewise, we become spiritually unhealthy if we are always doing Kingdom work without spending time being with Jesus. Healthy spiritual life is a rhythm – “breathe in” (be with Jesus), “breathe out” (be sent by Jesus).

The beauty is we can live in this rhythm in all the various roles in our life and we don’t need to feel guilty about being unbalanced!

So, where do you need to focus attention today? Being with Jesus? Being sent by Jesus? Just a thought. (Bob Johnson)