There are times in my life when the minutes seem to go by like hours. When the time it takes to read about the crossing on the Mayflower seems equivalent to the actual time it took to DO the crossing on the Mayflower. (Can you feel me, homeschool moms?) But then there are other times when the frenetic pace of life makes it seem like entire months go by in the blink of an eye. When the busyness of getting everyone where they need to get and keeping up with everything I need to keep up with and still finding quite time with God takes all I’ve got and more. In those times, I need to find balance and to remember that it’s often easy to let the good become the enemy of the excellent, and it’s the excellent that God desires.
I once heard a parable about how we all juggle balls. Those balls might be things like our family, our pets, our volunteer work, our jobs, our friends, our good intentions, our home duties (like laundry and dishes, etc.), our leisure time, our passions, our relationship with our Savior, and on and on. And that’s not even breaking them down into smaller components like projects at work or in the home or a friend’s baby shower or being “team mom” for soccer or carpooling to co-op or doctor’s appointments or making time to plant the garden or pull the weeds or all the other little things that get added in. Anyway, the main gist is that there are two kinds of “balls” that we juggle- rubber and glass.
As the name implies, rubber balls will bounce if you let them drop. If you can’t be team mom this time around, someone else will have to, or there just won’t be a team mom. If you miss the doctor’s appointment (and you aren’t medically fragile) you can reschedule, although it might cost you a small fee. If you don’t do the laundry today, unless you are truly minimalistic, chances are there really is something else to wear to hold you over a day or two. And some balls can bounce and you will never even notice it. Oops, we didn’t get all our leaves from the backyard to the curb for curbside pickup in the fall. But you know what? The lawn mower will mulch those leaves quite nicely in the spring, or we can rake them to the rubbish pile in the back- catastrophe averted. Rubber balls are frequently “good things”- piano lessons, basketball, birthday parties, helping other with projects they have taken on, planting a garden – but when they overtake your schedule and leave you feeling overwhelmed, then they are actually not “good” anymore, and they are the enemy of the excellent.
So what is excellent? Your glass balls are excellent. Your glass balls are the things that would break if you dropped them. First and foremost is your relationship with God. If that relationship is maintained, you will have a much easier time keeping the proper perspective on all your other demands, so you need to spend time in the Word every day. Next, your marriage is a glass ball. God says of marriage that two become one. The word for that means like superglue. You can’t separate one from the other without damage. So you MUST preserve your marriage. It will shatter if dropped. Your children are glass balls. Being who God called you to be is a glass ball. You are unique, and you were created for a unique purpose. No one can be you but you. Other glass balls may come and go- a dying relative, an urgent project, the neediness of a newborn- but when you start asking God to help you prioritize your day according to His “to-do” list, you may just find that many of your “good” things really are getting in the way of your excellent ones.
In my own life, I just had to walk away from a Bible study. What? Did you read that right? Yes, I said I had to walk away from a Bible study. In the grand scheme of things, it was actually the 4th weekly commitment to Bible study I was making (not counting church), all occurring each week. My activities at my own church and my Precept study were “first in” and most important to me, and I felt like this latest study, one from my homeschool co-op, was the literal straw that was going to break this camel’s back! Oh, to be a theologian and just be able to study God’s word all day! But I’m a homeschooling mom of four, one a special needs child making the transition to legal adulthood in the next few months. I’m also a wife and helpmeet. Those are my “jobs” first and foremost. They are what God has called me to do. And in my attempt to keep all my balls up in the air, some were getting thrown awfully wide and barely getting caught as they plummeted toward the Earth. The laundry was piling up. I hadn’t gone grocery shopping for over a week (with 6 people that means we were playing the “what shall I run and grab for dinner” game). Worse, I still hadn’t started a botany project with my youngest daughter that was due in a week. Something had to give. I prayed. I asked my accountability group to pray for me. And God clearly say, “Enough.” I quit the Bible study, and I felt like a giant weight was lifted off my shoulder. The good (because clearly Bible study is good) was an enemy to the excellent- doing well the things God has called me to do: the Bible studies I am already in, being a wife and mother, and being a homeschooling mom.
When life get crazy and it feels like wave after crashing wave is coming at us, we need to do what the apostles did in Luke 8:22-25, and look to Jesus for help. God says, “In repentance and rest you will be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.” Jesus knows how to quiet the waves. He made them. And He made you. Pray about all the “balls” in your life, and ask God what can be dropped. Trust Him. In quietness and trust is your strength, not in trying to be all to all. In repentance and rest we are saved, not in doing more and more and more. Don’t let all the good things in your life keep you from the excellent things of God. 1 Peter 2:12 tells us to keep our behavior excellent among the gentiles (nonbelievers). But we can’t do that if we are stressed out trying to keep up with all the “good” things in our life. As you strive to find balance in the busy seasons of your life, it’s usually not about making choices between the good and bad but making choices between the good and the excellent that will truly keep your heart in line with God’s plan and keep you in His perfect peace.
