The true joy in life is to be used for a mighty purpose, to be a force of nature

One of the questions that Leeanne and I have been talking about is how we live our life.

My kids are not used to having me around as much as I am at the moment, and when I took my first overnight trip to Sydney last week, it wasn’t hard to detect a sense of “here we go again”, from them.

As Leeanne and I talk about our 18 years of marriage, there is a sadness for me that I was so busy that I didn’t really understand what life was like for her with four energetic little kids. I think if I had my time over I would probably do less work and spend more time at home.

The question of getting the balance right is one that is guaranteed to induce strong feelings in most parents. Its something we know we need to do, but something that seems impossible.

I was encouraged in reading John Ortberg’s The Life you’ve always wanted – spiritual disciplines for ordinary people. He indicates that reaching for balance in your life may actually be reaching for the wrong thing.

He writes:

In our time, the great quest is for a “balanced lifestyle.” Ask most people in American society today what they are after, and they will say something about the need for balance. The Merlins of our day are time management consultants; books of incantations have been replaced by Day Timers.

Even so, balance is not the Holy Grail. A balanced lifestyle is not an adequate goal to which to devote our lives. The problem with that goal is not that it is too difficult, but that it is too slight. Balance is not the most helpful paradigm for an ideal life.

The quest for balance can contribute to a tendency to compartmentalize our faith. Often a balanced life is pictured as a pie chart with life divided into seven or eight slices…… This paradigm encourages us to think of matters such as finances or work as “nonspiritual activities.” It blinds us to the fact that God is intensely interested in our every moment and activity.

Ortberg goes on to point out that the balance paradigm doesn’t allow much room for people in desperate situations, and how trying to divide your time equally really doesn’t lead to balance anyway.

He goes on:

At a deeper level, the paradigm of balance simply doesn’t capture the sense of compelling urgency worthy of human devotion. It is largely a middle-class pursuit. It lacks the notion that my life is to be given to something bigger than myself.

Ortberg then quotes George Bernard Shaw who said:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

He drives his point home by saying:

The quest for balance lacks the notion that life is to be given to something bigger than ourselves. It lacks the call to sacrifice and self-denial – the wild, risky, costly, adventurous abandon of following Jesus. Ask hungry children in Somalia if they want to help you achieve balance, and you will discover they were hoping for something more from you. And I believe that, deep down, you are probably hoping for something more from yourself.

I found this chapter of the book very helpful, and it helped me look back on the last 18 years with slightly different eyes. Yes, there were so many times when I was full of myself and not sensitive to my wife or kids in the way Jesus would have me be, but at the same time, Leeanne and I dedicated our marriage to “seeking first the kingdom”, and I know for both of us the last 18 years have been an attempt to do that. We have attempted to give ourselves for something bigger than us. we haven’t always got it right, by a long shot, but it sure has been an adventure.

I am reminded of the six times (Matt 10:39, Matt 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, Luke 17:33, John 12:25) Jesus says something like:

Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

I hope I can learn from my mistakes as a husband and a father, but I also hope that we will always be ready to go on the adventure.