In Balance

In high school, I remember one night getting home from a high school swim meet very late, needing to study for multiple tests, and bursting into tears when my parents reminded me to turn off my headlights after parking in front of the house. Is that cause for tears? I think not.

To say that my emotional health and state was unbalanced and in flux in high school, is an understatement. I could hardly verbalize what I was feeling.   I wasn't getting enough sleep, I had just had a full day at school, a 4 hour long swim meet, school work to finish,  college applications, plus I occasionally wanted to see my friends. As I've been teaching our kids the past few weeks about all of these characteristics of the church and of God that all are so different from one another, I've been reminded of that night in high school that nothing in my life was in balance, and... the ways my life still most definitely aren't balanced.

But, here's the beauty I've found in all of these qualities of God I've been teaching. He is perfectly all. He is perfectly balanced. He is perfectly equal in everything He says He is. Praise God!  When God is wrathful and calls us to repent, He is equally full of grace and mercy. When God is judging and convicting, He is equally forgiving and merciful. When He calls us to care for the orphans and oppressed, He equally desires for us as individuals to draw closer to Him.  When my life looks like a scale that is tipping, with bitterness running over and my mercy for others running dry; God looks like thousands of different scales all equally weighted the same.  He is perfect in His character. I'm so thankful that God's character is nothing like mine, and He was not fashioned in my image. We would know wrath but not love. We would know grace without salvation.

Where I am weak, He is strong. I was asked last night with a group of women what it looks like to "delight in my weakness". I think it means where we are unbalanced, and our bitterness and judgement takes ahold of our lifestyle, we can rely upon Christ to help us become more like Him. Because in reality, that's what I desire. I pray for my life to reflect the equality that Christ's does. So, as I'm being fashioned and made into His likeness, I pray for my scales that are always far from equilibrium, to be adjusted to reflect more of His. Jesus, give me equal parts love and grace, repentance and forgiveness, conviction and delight. I pray for our children and all of you daily as we all "becoming". We are all "becoming" more like something. Is that something more like the culture of 2015? Or, are you being transformed and becoming more like Christ? Are you allowing Him to show you His equality and allow His perfection to transform your way of being a disciple?