A Balanced Life

I am sure we are all familiar with the phrase "a work/life balance". 

However, I would venture to say that, whilst we are familiar with it in principle, it is rarely a reality in our lives.  Instead, for most of us, our lives are dominated by our work.  Far from the '9-5' cliché, we find our work encroaching on our evenings and our weekends.  With a growing trend in flexi-hours and working from home, we are now unable to easily separate these two aspects of our lives.

Sometimes I feel that my attempts at a work/life balance are rather like a fat kid on a see-saw.  They are unfairly weighted.  My life is dominated by my work, and my attempts at a 'life' are like the weasly kid suspended in the air at the other end of the see-saw.

This is something with which I have wrestled and struggled for a long while.

I felt that work was something to get through and something to endure until the weekend.  It was separated from the rest of my life and was of no importance to God.

But recently I feel that God has been showing me how important my work is, and how important work is to all of our lives.

God created Adam and Eve to work in the Garden of Eden.  Work wasn't a punishment, but a blessing:

      "God created human beings;

      he created them godlike,

      Reflecting God's nature.

      He created them male and female.

      God blessed them: 

      'Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!

      Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,

      for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.'"

     

      [Genesis 1:27-28 MSG]

God cares about my work along with all other aspects of my life: my friendships, my relationships, what book I'm reading, what film I'm watching, what I'm enjoying, what I'm struggling with. 

He cares about it all, and He wants us to acknowledge Him in it all.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."

[Colossians 3:23 NIV]

Rather than striving for a work/life balance, I am aiming for a balanced life.   A life balanced with work and relaxing and resting and playing and studying and relationship and solitude and eating and fasting and praying and thinking and indulging and refraining and talking and listening ...

A balanced life.