Achieving Balance

Ever spend some time really observing God’s creation.  He creates trees to be balanced; root system able to support the trunk, limbs and branches.  Our planet has the perfect balance of water to land ratio to sustain life.  Our seasons are perfectly balanced to bring forth fruit and harvest and to allow the ground, soil and seed to rest.  Even the dimensions of Noah’s ark were perfectly balanced to keep the ship afloat, interestingly, the same dimensions Noah used are the same dimensions used today in the nautical world to make ships, boats and sea worthy vessels.  Every creature is balanced to sustain life–the wings of a bird, balanced so the bird can fly, the fins of fish balanced to the size of the fish to help it swim, beehives, perfectly balanced to produce honey to sustain life and the next generation.  Simply amazing if we take the time to really notice, and I encourage you to take this time.  I believe God wants to tell us through His creation how important it is for us to have balance in our own lives.

We can have a lot of “plates spinning” these days, time with our spouse, time with kids, friends, exercise, our jobs, church, personal prayer time, rest.  It can be overwhelming when we break it all down.  I have found that often times stress, dissatisfaction with life, or frustrations can come from having our lives off balance.  Maybe we are spending too much time on social media and not enough time in face to face friendships, maybe too much time at our jobs and our home life is suffering, this all comes from being “off balance”.  I want to encourage you that if you are feeling some stress and dissatisfaction with your life, that maybe you should take some time and assess the balance in your life.  One simple technique to do this, is the following:
1. Get a paper plate
2. On the outer rim of plate write out all the ways you spend your time in a typical week (i.e., social media, work, sleep, family, hobbies)
3.  In the middle of the plate write  your name.
4. Draw lines from the items on the outer rim to yourself.
5.  On each line (using a scale of 1-10) write the number that describes how satisfied you are feeling with both the quantity and quality of time you are spending in that area.
6.  Take inventory of all the lines and the number you placed on each, asking yourself what adjustments can I make to be more balanced in my satisfaction in this area?  What do I need to pour more into?  what do I need to pull back on?

This can be a simple, yet highly informative way to take stock in our lives and to endeavor to have balance in our lives so that we are richly satisfied.

Respectfully submitted,
Pam Stinchcomb, LMSW