The Art of Juggling

“The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way …”          (Proverbs 14:8) 

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Juggling was never one of my talents.  Oh, the effort was made if only briefly to juggle baseballs, golf balls, fruit and eggs only once!  I just couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. It seems in looking back over those futile efforts that I was focusing so hard on not dropping any of the items being juggled, that I forgot to just juggle and dropped most if not all of them.

Life can be that way can’t it?  We all have a number of basic obligations and responsibilities including family, work, the Lord, community and even a little room for taking care of ones’ self. The more balls that we are responsible for, the more difficult it becomes to keep it all straight. Just like the juggler who loses his focus we see the need to work on one area of our life and just when we begin to think we are at least getting some sort of a handle on it, some other obligation clamors for attention and we run off in that direction. And on and on it goes!

But that is not all to the juggling act of life.  Someone approaches us with a need or a project and they really need us to help them out.  We can’t seem to say the word “NO” and then the merry-go-round speeds up even faster and we wonder if it will ever slow down enough for us to at least catch our breath.  Sound familiar?  It should!  The Lord warned us not to get too busy to serve Him, and yet we turn right around and do it anyway.  Sometimes we even get so busy doing the Lord’s work, we get overwhelmed.  We must always keep in mind that one command in God’s Word does not contradict another command!

James Patterson describes our plight well with the following words:  “Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you’re keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls…are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.”

We’ve all dropped the glass balls of life haven’t we and we are so disappointed in ourselves or in others who have done the same thing.  So, how do we do better at juggling the duties of life and living?  The answer is actually very simple to state, but much more difficult to put into practice:  We must put our relationship with the Lord at the top of our agenda.  It needs to be the first entry on our calendar!  Our relationship with God must be the first thing that uploads when we boot up our computer or when we press the button on our I Phone.  Jesus says to us, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33).  With God’s perspective for our lives, the easier it becomes to juggle all the rest.

The questions of the day are:  Do we actually believe what Jesus is saying to us?  Do we truly believe that He could possibly know what works best in this 21st century world of ours?  You make the call, but be very careful about how you answer these questions, for your life, your very soul will depend on the truthfulness of your answers!

“Priorities balanced on the firm foundation of God’s Word are less likely to topple under pressure.” 

 

Bill Fairchild, Jr.

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