Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Balance”
Our Bible verse for today: “There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “There is a right time for everything.”
This morning I have intentionally reused Ecclesiastes 3:1 as our Bible verse for today even though I used it yesterday too. That’s because this verse is essentially our guiding verse for the entire month and it teaches a lesson that we really need to get. In order to fully appreciate the point Solomon is making we need to consider the entire passage:
“There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven; a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plan and a time to uproot; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build; a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing; a time to search and a time to count as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away; a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.” (3:1-8)
In that passage Solomon makes it clear that there is a time to be born and a time to die and a time for everything in-between. Like my mother used to say, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” This is about appropriate balance.
But appropriate balance is something many of us lack. Usually we work too much, or not enough; we’re exercise fanatics, or we don’t exercise at all; we relax too much, or too little. Few of us really get it right.
This matters because God designed us to thrive when our lives are balanced. If you were to conduct a thematic study of “balance” and trace it as a thread through the Bible you would discover that God gives us equal parts of “Go and do” along with “Stop and rest”. But most of us “go” and “do” until we drop; or we spend too much of our time stopped and resting and not getting much of anything done.
Dr. James Loehr was a renowned sports psychologist who spent his career working with world class athletes like professional tennis players and Olympians. These were people who were driven to the extremes of hard work and discipline – so much so that they were prone to burn out. Dr. Loehr discovered that one of the most important lessons they needed to learn was that of balance – specifically balance between the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of life. That’s where we will pick this up tomorrow. In the meantime I encourage you to give some thought to whether or not your life might be out of balance in those four key areas.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 