I love a morning shower. But it takes a while to get the temperature just right. I learned this the hard way in my parent’s house. Turn the dial one way and there’s a trickle of ice-cold water. Turn it the other and you’re drenched in liquid fire. 1 mm of difference between FREEZING and BURNING.
You can get frozen by having too little – or burned, by having too much. This is also true of life.
I’ve got two big fears:
1. being needy and
2. being overwhelmed
The answer? A work-life balance.
Manage your time and your money. Prioritise and plan. Save and invest. Say no. Make lists. Store up. Hold back.
Get this right and you’re laughing. That gnawing empty feeling – gone. Insecurity – gone. Tricky relationships – gone.
There are plenty of places that tell you how to do it. Books, magazines, TV, advertisements. People too. Oprah, Gwynneth, Martha Stewart, (ok – maybe not her).
Get the dials right – and you’ll never be needy or overwhelmed again.
Which is what life is all about, right?
Not being needy:
Deut 8:3: So he made you suffer from hunger and then fed you … to teach you that a person cannot live on bread alone but on every word that the LORD speaks. (NIV)
Col 2:6: So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live dependent on him. (ISV)
And not being overwhelmed:
Isaiah 61:10: I am overwhelmed with joy in the LORD my God!
For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation
and draped me in a robe of righteousness.
I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit
or a bride with her jewels. (NLT)
Mark 9:15: As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. (NIV)
Someone said (can’t remember who) that the Christian life is much like a drunk man trying to mount a horse. Heaving himself up one side only to fall off the opposite side.
This is me, lying on my back in the street looking up at the stars wondering how this has happened again!
I love the verse you quote “…continue to live dependent on him”
What we have in the Christian walk is different from other religions because it is based solely on this relationship of neediness and dependence and being overwhelmed!