I’ve been thinking and praying recently about various aspects of my life and how to have more balance. I once read in a book how if your life is not in balance, it’ll be like riding in a car with a flat tire: uncomfortable and ultimately damaging your wheel. He goes on to give you a little quiz whereby you add up points on the different aspects of life and you jot them out on a ‘wheel’ with eight points. Then you can see if you’ve reached a balanced life or if you’re putting a lot of emphasis on one aspect over another. I read that you need to divide your ‘Pillars of Life’ into these four categories:
1) Professional ministry life
2) Spiritual life
3) Community life
4) Personal and family life
Looking over them now, I see that there are also sub-categories that should be added. For example, under Personal and Family Life, there should be the specific aspects of Marriage, Childcare, Health and Fitness.
I suppose one size doesn’t fit all and it’s up to each individual to know what their balance is. What I find works for me is to make it a habit to spend a specific time for everything that important to me. So I make sure that I spend some time reading and meditating on God’s Word, exercising, going out to minister to people, and I find it helps both me and my husband if I take the time to verbalize how much he’s been helping me, either with the boys, work around the house, or driving me from here to there throughout the day. Everything else can either get fit in to the day or sidelined all together, and I know that at least I’ve done what is necessary.
I may not be able to do as much as I used to do, but spending time influencing the next generation, starting with my sons, seems to be a worthy trade-off.
I’ve also added dedicated time to learn about blogging, and working on the JcNuggets.