Balancing Act

Balancing Act Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 I could hardly wait for my package to arrive from Amazon. “Yoga for the 50+ Woman” caught my eye a few nights earlier. This program promised flexibility and balance for gals my age. I have been struggling on and off for a few years with bouts of vertigo and thought this video would help. I envisioned myself barefoot and dressed in flowy, white, comfy yoga clothing. I could almost feel the cool morning breeze and first rays of warm sun on my face as I opened the windows to greet the day. Curtains fluttering in the breeze. Birds singing. My movement and breath in sync to the calming yoga music … ( you get the picture). Fast forward. This is what it really looked like. I hit the snooze that first morning for an extra 45 minutes. Once awake, I shuffled to the coffee pot. (I was certain the yoga instructor started her day as well with two cups of java.) I went to the front window and pushed the curtains aside to be greeted by a dark, dismal rainy day. No birds. No breeze. No sunbeams. “No problem,” I thought to myself. I love the sound of rain and opened the windows anyway. I went to the couch for a bit with the coffee and thought about my next move. My new, sticky yoga mat was in the corner waiting for me. I picked up the DVD from the table and stared at the woman smiling back at me. Tina was toned and tan. She didn’t look a day over 25. Pearly white teeth. Blonde hair in a perfect, long, sleek ponytail. And, yes, dressed head to toe in (you guessed it…) white, flowy yoga clothes. I have to admit, I was a bit excited. I got up and headed to my closet and drawers to pick out my yoga attire. After what seemed like an eternity, I settled on the perfect outfit. My favorite comfy sweatpants, pink tank top that reads “cozy camper” (let’s throw in as well, a little dog hair) and a headband. I looked in the mirror. “Gotta start somewhere,” I remember thinking to myself. I unrolled my yoga mat. Hit play on the DVD player and started. I can tell you it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. It was evident I was not going to master this in one session. When you stand on one leg with the other at a 45-degree angle with that foot tucked nicely next to the knee of the other leg… it's not just the legs that do the work. The balance comes from every other body part working together to compensate for any imbalance. If arms are outstretched, they will move in a direction to maintain balance. Then add folded prayer hands chest level and oh, yes…don’t forget to close the eyes! Tanned, toned Tina on my DVD cover was sporting this pose (when I tried this, my vertigo kicked in and I felt nauseous, stumbled and then fell over). Eyes open was a bit better. But beware–looking down makes it worse. One must look straight ahead to maintain balance in this manner. (Which got me thinking…) What do ballerinas, ice skaters and gymnasts all have in common? They never look down! A gymnast on the balance beam never looks down. Even soccer players are told to look at the field and not at their feet! There was something else I noticed. For total balance something else had to happen. Core muscles provide the real stability. I had to engage my core. I found this to be true when I hit the floor to try a 30-second plank pose. This is tough! Keeping everything still while on hands and toes assuming a push-up position. It looks easy enough but it doesn’t take long for the core to start to tremble trying to maintain the position. Simply changing position of the other body parts makes no difference. It’s the center of the body that is doing the work. One needs to work on the core muscles to hold this position for any amount of time. How is it done? Awareness and continued engagement of the core daily in all areas of activity. One dictionary definition of core reads as follows,”the central or most important part of something.” One definition I found for “balance” states “to bring into harmony or proportion.” It certainly makes sense to me that these two go hand in hand. Core and balance would bring about stability, would they not? In today’s world most are struggling to achieve and maintain balance in every aspect of their life. Time, money, family, relationships and careers all require a great deal of work to maintain balance. Deficit in even one of these areas often leads to decline in one, more, or even all other areas. The stress this creates ultimately creates an imbalance in one’s mental and emotional state. Anger, resentment, anxiety, depression have devastating and lasting effects. It truly becomes a vicious cycle difficult to break. Let’s get physical. Literally! Our physical health suffers immensely as we all know in times of stress and imbalance. I need not go into all the medical conditions associated with and caused by stress. We know them well. Recently, I had a conversation with a gentleman and he told me of his recent trip to the ER and eventual admission to the hospital for a stay. I asked him what had happened? He started feeling weak one day at work. He developed blurred vision and heart palpitations. He had leg cramps so bad he could barely walk. Headache. He was cold and then hot. Even more terrifying, he said, was that he could not reason or think well. He could reason only well enough to know he was in trouble but didn’t know what he should do. Thankfully, a co-worker took notice of his condition and took him to the ER. So– any guess on what caused this? It was an imbalance! An electrolyte imbalance caused by heat exhaustion and dehydration. Lack of water. Inadequate fluids. With fluid depletion the body was trying to compensate. This can only happen for so long before one is in grave danger. He needed more than a bag of fluid administered. He was hospitalized due to the imbalance for days. Rest. If God rested, then we can too. Studies prove that less than seven hours of sleep daily causes an increase in risk for heart attack and stroke among so many other things. Get your zzz’s in. Diet. Proper nutrition is a no brainer. We know what to eat. People scoff nowadays at the old school food pyramid. Really though, it makes sense to me. We don’t find the goodies we love at the bottom of the pyramid, where the foundation and strength of the pyramid is. We find our Twinkies at the tippy top in that itty bitty little triangle that one can barely read. The “eat sparingly box.” Again it’s all about balance. And, of course, we know to get moving when we can. The body was designed for movement! Now, other than these obvious reasons, why is physical health so important to God? The Bible reminds us that our body is the TEMPLE for the Holy Spirit, and we should treat it as such. Think on that! Ok. And what about “spiritual” balance? If one wants to find an example of perfect balance, then simply open up the Bible to the Book of Genesis. God created perfect balance. He balanced Adam with Eve. The light and darkness. The stars suspend in perfect balance. Ocean and land. Plants and animals. Our planet has the perfect balance of gasses to sustain life in all living things. God did this in six days and then rested. He balanced His work with rest. Jesus rested. More than once in the Bible we are told Jesus rested. Our problem is not that we need more hours in a day; we need less things to fill up our days! Better prioritizing. With 24 hours in a day we know that one-third is spent usually working, another sleeping, and leaving a third of the day to fit in the rest of life. Where do we place God in these hours? Is He last? Is prayer squeezed in at bedtime only? Where is the balance? I am guilty as any. I seem to think I can cram an endless amount of commitments, tasks and responsibilities into that remaining third of the day. Only to end up exhausted and collapsing into bed, falling asleep mid-prayer. The next time we have a “bad day,” perhaps we should ask ourselves how we balanced out the day. It would be interesting to see how, when and where we fit God into our day. I have thought about journaling my time for just a week to see where all these extra seemingly wasted minutes go in an eighthour period. How many minutes a day am I devoting to God’s will for my life? Sadly, I’m afraid of the answer. God. Jesus. Holy Spirit. The Trinity must be our innermost being and core if we are to survive, thrive and do the work of God. The three provide a perfect balance like no other. We can be sure Satan will work hard to find things to fill our days. Anything to keep us from spending time with God. Satan will have us believe that the world can fulfill our needs and provide all the balance we need to be happy through money, material possessions, power and more. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we know it. I love to think of Jesus as our core. I am reminded of the story in Matthew 14. Peter walks on water toward Jesus but when he takes his eyes off Jesus and focuses more on the wind and waves, Peter starts to sink. He lost his balance and stability when he lost his faith in Jesus. When he focused on the world and looked around and down instead of into the eyes of our Lord, he lost his balance. In closing…a favorite hymn of mine... “Turn your eyes upon Jesus..look full in His wonderful face…and the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” Amen. Janet