Balance and Harmony

If you have subscribed or plan to be a regular visitor of this blog, it may help to know something about me. Specifically, the idea of balance is central to everything I think, say and do. Whether it's work and rest, time alone and with others, planning and spontaneity, or something else, I am constantly trying to find the way to put everything into proper balance. So consider this a presuppositional confession. If there's a middle-of-the-road, I'm most likely going to try and find it and stick to it.

Now, this may rub some the wrong way. "Balanced" and "middle-of-the-road" may scream comfort and ease. It may sound like the politician who's eager to get re-elected, promising the world to opposing sides. And during a time when Christians are encouraged to be radical and risk-taking, this may come off as a surefire way to ignore Christ's commission.

But if you understand the word "balance" to mean "no backbone,""comfortable," "lily-livered" or anything like that,  please understand that is not at all what I'm saying. I am not talking about staying out of the fray and never taking a position on anything to avoid conflict. And no way in all of this am I trying to seek my own comfort (though I struggle with that daily).

Rather, what I am hoping to convey here is that things need to be held in proper proportion. Every issue is not a 50/50 split. Think of a scale. A block of graphite (the stuff in your pencils) is not the same as a block of lead, even if they're the same size. Without a proper understanding of the elements one might think that things are balanced looking at the two. But, put it on the scale and the reality becomes obvious very quickly.

Likewise, not all issues are created equal and not all things are harmonized the same way. I do not balance my service to Christ with, say, service to myself. I don't balance reading the Word of God with reading sacred texts of false religions. These things are of such great worth that the proper proportion is to give them my all. Even balance then, has to be placed in its proper position.

My concern, though, is that too often we Christians become so enamored with particular idea or way of thinking that we go for it with all our might, throwing any sense of caution or propriety to the window. I've seen this done with a number of issues. For example: emphasizing God's sovereignty and excluding human responsibility, focusing on the mind and downplaying emotions, accenting the Spirit's work in us for sanctification and ignoring our role in it and the reverse of each of these. I've even seen such outrageous things as putting the humanity of Christ over His deity and vice versa.

In my opinion, if we were steady in staying true to all of God's revealed truth (Acts 20:27) and working together as a united body (another issue for another time) I think much of this would be avoided. We could, to paraphrase Martin Luther, stop being the drunk man who continually falls off one side of his horse only to get back on and fall off the other.

God's truth, revealed to us in His Scriptures, gives us the proper perspective with which to view everything. If we are staying true to all of it (the parts that make us uncomfortable as much as the parts that don't) we would be closer to holding things in proportion. And maybe we'd stop pitting mind against emotion, sovereignty against responsibility, the Spirit's work against ours.

This is something I'm trying to work on in my own life and I would plead with you to join me. I know there's more to be discussed with all this and we're never going to get it all right this side of heaven, but maybe we could start praying to see how to follow the narrow road, without veering to either side (Proverbs 4:27; Deuteronomy 5:32)