Overview
Popular definitions of a balanced life quietly assume that the goal is fitting more in. Ecclesiastes puts it differently: better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of striving. That reframing runs through the whole teaching, from deciding what to keep in a home to deciding what gets a place in a week. Busyness is cultural rather than obligatory, and the urgent tends to crowd out the life-giving unless something is done about it deliberately.
Transcript
What a Balanced Life Actually Means
We are excited to share with you a little bit tonight and really take a practical look at what it means to live a balanced life and give you some examples from our own lives. As I was preparing this teaching, I decided to look at Google AI and see what the definition of a balanced life was. And this is what Google AI says. A harmonious distribution of energy and attention across various aspects of one’s life leading to overall well-being and fulfillment. A balanced life results in sustainable equilibrium between work, personal life, relationships, health, and other significant areas, allowing individuals to meet their needs and pursue their goals without feeling overwhelmed and depleted.
As I contemplated this definition, I was struck by the subtlety of the adversary’s influence in our culture and how he really seeks to eliminate God from the equation. Because at first blush, when you read this definition, it sounds pretty good. A harmonious distribution to have well-being and fulfillment, who wouldn’t want that? Sustainable equilibrium to meet needs and pursue goals without feeling overwhelmed? That sounds pretty good. But this definition is not consistent with the biblical perspective of a balanced life. What is a balanced life biblically? It’s Matthew 633 that we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
And so I started to rewrite Google AI’s definition of a balanced life. And you see on the left what our culture considers a balanced life, and on the right what I think is one version of how to live this out biblically. So it’s a focused pursuit of God’s kingdom and His righteousness, leading to a life of fulfillment on earth that will result in eternal rewards. And a balanced life results in not necessarily what Google AI says, where people are meeting their own needs and pursuing their own goals and relying on their own strength to do it, but rather it results in a peace that passes all understanding, allowing individuals to follow after their God-given calling with His limitless strength.
Do you see how subtle that is? Sometimes in our culture we get this idea in our head about what a concept is, like a balanced life. Well God invented life. He knows what the balance is, and when we look biblically this is what we want to pursue. So this evening I wanted to highlight two culprits that can distract us from our pursuit of God. And the first is physical possessions, and the second is busy schedules. Ecclesiastes 4-6 is one of my favorite verses when I think about how to strike a balance with physical possessions.
It says,
Better a Handful of Quietness
better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. Has anybody ever tried to catch the wind with your hands? It just blows right through your fingers, right? It’s a useless pursuit, you’re never going to catch it in your hands. And when I think about having a handful of possessions and peace versus two handfuls with a lot of work and striving after useless things, that is the balance that we seek, is possessions that lead to peace and quietness, and not a bunch of extra work and striving after what is useless.
This is something that
Keeping Only What Is Used and Loved
Jason and I have really sought after and committed to early on in our marriage, and that was not wanting to have a lot of physical possessions. And so one of the things that we have built into our lives is going through our possessions once a year. And we started this in our 700 square foot apartment when we were first married. We would look at every single item in every drawer, every closet, anything we owned and consider, do we need this or can we get rid of it?
And as we have continued that tradition as we upsize to a town home and then a single family home with children, these are some of the questions that we ask ourselves as we consider our physical possessions. Have I used this in the past year? One of my favorite things to do on January 1st is I go into our closet and I turn all of our hangers the wrong way. And then over the course of the year, as we wear a piece of clothing, when we hang it back up, we hang it the right way.
And so on December 31st, I know everything that we’ve worn in the past year and what we’re not using. We ask ourselves, do I enjoy this? And I think you’d be surprised if you look around your house at every item and ask yourself that question, how many things you have in your home that you would not answer yes for that question. We ask, does this require a lot of maintenance or take up a lot of space? We don’t want to have physical items that require a lot of maintenance and take up our time or take up a lot of physical space.
And then one of my favorites, if I didn’t have this, would I go out and buy it right now? And if I didn’t have this, would I miss it if it wasn’t here? In addition to getting lean once a year by purging some of our physical possessions, we try to stay lean. So a new item comes in, an old one goes out the door. We do this with our children when they get gifts at the holidays. If they got 10 things to play with, they donate 10 things out of their closet.
Making What You Own Visible
We like to organize things so that we can visualize them. When you open a drawer, you shouldn’t, I don’t want to be going through an abyss of items, but I want to be able to open it and see everything that we own right away. And that way I’m kind of keeping track of what we’re building up. One way to stay lean is just don’t buy it. Don’t buy something else. Another way to stay lean is don’t keep it. A funny illustration of this when we had our baby shower for our first kid, several family friends, co-workers through us baby showers.
And I remember Jason and I in our living room taking stock of all the generous things that people had given us. And we both looked at each other and we said, we don’t need half of this stuff. What we actually need are diapers and wipes. We were living on a shoestring budget with one income and we didn’t need all the fancy baby things, we just needed the basics. So we actually returned half of what people got us and exchanged it for diapers and wipes. And we have unapologetically decided that just because somebody gives it to us does not mean that we have to keep it for the rest of our lives.
We take stock of what we have. We enjoy things for a season, but if they’re not adding to our lives and they’re distracting from our purpose of following God, we get rid of it and then borrow it. If there’s items that we use infrequently, sometimes we seek to borrow them rather than purchase them. Well, what about thinking about busy schedules? Proverbs 1921 says, Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. We have a busy schedule. I’m sure all of you do too.
Busy Culture Versus Chosen Priorities
It is in our culture to be busy, but we are a family of two working parents with a six-year-old and a 10-year-old daughter, six and 10-year-old daughters. My job includes night shifts and weekend work and international travel. And so we have to be really intentional about how we build our lives and our schedules to make sure that we’re pursuing after the things of God. And what we strive to do is to build an indestructible routine. What do I mean by that? Well, we spend habitual time with God. And I’m most successful at this when I apply a time management principle that people call crowding out where rather than doing what feels urgent, you do what is necessary and important first.
And then the urgent things get done after that. Sometimes spending with God doesn’t feel urgent. And if you leave it for last, it’s not going to happen. We do life with his people. And Jason will talk more about this in his teaching, but we really strive to spend time as a couple and as a family with other believing couples and families that we can have life-giving relationships with. And then we really try to maintain margin. If there’s a commitment that’s going to distract, we just say no. We don’t say yes to every social invitation, every birthday party that the kids get.
We pick and choose what’s going to be most life-giving. And if God calls us to a season with little margin, which he often does, we make sure that we build in rest before and after. And I think most importantly, as we build that indestructible routine, we plan our schedule with God at the forefront of it. And we ask him for his wisdom when we’re making decisions. I was a former dancer and love thinking about the human body. And I think that the
Neutral Position and Readiness to Serve
neutral position is a nice analogy for this building of an indestructible routine.
So in neutral position, your spine maintains its natural curves, your head is balanced on your shoulders, your body weight is evenly distributed. And this neutral position minimizes strain on muscles, joints, it promotes optimal alignment and stability. And we want to build schedules that keep us in this neutral posture where we can move forward effortlessly towards our pursuit of God and his word. But the other aspect of a busy schedule that we strive for is to be eminently interruptible. And what I mean by that is that we are looking for God’s opportunities in life’s disruptions.
You know, often when we have an opportunity to serve God, it’s not something that we scheduled. It’s something that comes up. We see that in parenting all the time. Those special moments with your children when you have the opportunity to show them God and his word to share his grace are often not scheduled. They come through interruptions and we want to be eminently interruptible. And so to continue that dance analogy, this is more akin to dynamic alignment. It’s where the body’s optimal position is during movement and it involves coordination of skeletal, muscular and nervous systems to produce sustainable movement.
It’s crucial for maintaining balance and generating power. And I want you to consider as you think about building a schedule that pursues God, not just walking forward at a steady pace, but how you handle the interruptions.
Key Takeaways
- Ecclesiastes prefers a handful of quietness to two hands full of striving, which cuts against most definitions of balance.
- Taking stock of what you own makes it far easier to decide what actually earns its place.
- Busyness is a cultural default rather than an obligation, and it can be chosen against.
- Urgent tasks will crowd out life-giving ones unless priorities are set before the week starts.
- Staying in a neutral, ready position is what makes it possible to respond when God opens something up.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a balanced life mean biblically?
Ecclesiastes puts it as better a handful of quietness than two hands full of striving. That cuts against the common assumption that balance means fitting more in.
How do you decide what to keep?
Take stock of what you actually own and make it visible. A useful test is whether you would choose it again if you did not already have it.
How do you stop urgent tasks crowding out important ones?
By choosing what is most life-giving before the week starts. Busyness is a cultural default rather than an obligation, and the urgent will always fill the space left for it.
Scripture References
Matthew 633; Ecclesiastes 4; Proverbs 192
This text was prepared from the teaching audio and notes. Please verify scripture references against your own Bible.
