Balance is an awful thing to keep
We started 2010 with a whirlwind trip to visit both our families (first in Alabama, then in Iowa), and I'm just now starting to feel the beginnings of a normal rhythm settling in. Don't think I'd have changed a thing-travelling in January is so much simpler and less expensive than taking the same trip in December, and it was the right time to spend that time with each of our families. That said, January is always a bit of a zoo with navigating year-end close and plenty of other work details, so the pacing of the first half of the month is really no surprise.
Thing is, it's not all about rhythms, or discipline, or rest. Those things matter, no doubt, and are worthy of attention and effort. But they matter in the context of a larger, deeper, truer story, one in which I'm called to trust God with my life. Not that I'm doing so perfectly, or even well many times. If making my life work and taking care of myself is solely up to me, however, I can already tell you it ends in failure (probably very quickly and spectacularly so).
I don't want to worship at the altar of lifestyle design, however appealing that may be. I've seen the results, and they're grotesque. Sometimes being faithful means running hard. Heck, sometimes running hard is absolutely a mistake, and yet I have a God who promises my failures don't have the last word. As the Pegleg Annie song says, "Balance is an awful thing to keep."
Thing is, it's not all about rhythms, or discipline, or rest. Those things matter, no doubt, and are worthy of attention and effort. But they matter in the context of a larger, deeper, truer story, one in which I'm called to trust God with my life. Not that I'm doing so perfectly, or even well many times. If making my life work and taking care of myself is solely up to me, however, I can already tell you it ends in failure (probably very quickly and spectacularly so).
I don't want to worship at the altar of lifestyle design, however appealing that may be. I've seen the results, and they're grotesque. Sometimes being faithful means running hard. Heck, sometimes running hard is absolutely a mistake, and yet I have a God who promises my failures don't have the last word. As the Pegleg Annie song says, "Balance is an awful thing to keep."