That place of harmony...

As a child I experienced my mother walking out when I was around nine years old. My dad worked two or three jobs just to make ends meet and see myself, my sister and brother with food and a roof over our heads. When he was done with his paid employment, we always had lawns to mow, cooking, cleaning and so on to be done. Seemed to me there was just too much for us to be a family. In the midst of this I watched my dad do his best to do things with us, we went camping and fishing and to the speedway. I loved it, and he did a good job spending as much time with us as possible. My mum would have us sometimes, and we would play tennis or go swimming. There was never a close bond between my parents and I. I grew up feeling so much was missing, and yet now looking back, I thank God for those years. My dad came to me and told me one day, he had so many regrets, that he spent so much time working to get what he thought we needed that by the time he got it, we were grown and gone. I didnt want that.

I aged, and had children of my own, I was determined never to be my parents. I was overwhelmingly determined never to let a chance go by when I was not with them doing something. What I noticed, especially as my children got older, is that I was so determined to spend every moment possible with them that other things were neglected. Things around home, arts and crafts, cooking, painting, time spent in the yard. I taught them to ride their bikes, the motor bike, steer the car, swim, skate, fish, camping, and going places most every week. I was so busy being with them and doing all I could with them that I neglected being a mum in other things which were necessary. I viewed the housework and maintaining the yard as a chore, a distraction. I did it as I had to, but things were not as they needed to be. I never realised that I could achieve a ballance. I never found that place of harmony.

I came to know Jesus and found myself repeating both ends of the spectrum. Some times I was so busy working at sharing, listening to preaching, and encouraging and praising and worshipping that I forgot to pray and read the word. I would spend hours and hours and hours just pouring out and filling up and pouring out and filling up and and and and. Then every now and then I would find myself so hungry for the presence and the intimacy, the quietness and the beauty of my own personal time with Jesus. I would get so busy doing I would forget to be.

Other times I would spend weeks, just praying and seeking God, so burdened and broken, pouring out and striving for all that it was possible to have, to know all I could know, to understand and gain the fullness of revelation. I would sit quietly and reflect. I would search myself and pour out, begging God to do all He needed to do that I would and could be totally His. I would spend days at a time with little or no sleep, desperate for more of God, for all of Him. I would find myself at a place where I felt blessed of the Lord but still empty and hollow and like so much was missing.

I needed, and still need to remember there is a ballance, there is both the ability and responsibility to do both. They go hand in hand. That it is ok to combine the two and also wise. That to do the one does not negate doing the other. I find when I struggle most with my flesh, is when I spend too much time doing and not enough being. I find when I struggle most with the intensity of burdens overwhelming is when I spend the biggest majority of my time isolated and not receiving, being fed or interacting with others.

While there is a ballance, it is not possible to set in concrete. Some weeks we need more quiet time with Jesus, others we need the interaction and business. It depends on the season, the situations your in, the emotional, mental and physical state your in. It also depends on what God is desiring from you and for you at any given time. It is possibe to learn to recognise which is what. It is possible to learn if your to be or to do or both. It is possible to be in that place of peace. To find sollace, all you need in that place of ballance. That place of harmony between the two.

Jesus bless you.