“Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” Luke 2:52 NIV
“Balance is having the right things in the proper measure, and complementary to everything else.”
My thoughts today are about “a dynamic balance.”
Growing is normal and expected. Healthy growth is well-rounded, making your life and development properly balanced. Imbalance presents unnecessary challenges to your everyday life. Look again at today’s verse. Jesus’ balanced growth is a model for yours. Jesus matured intellectually, acquiring knowledge and understanding to equip Him to walk and work with wisdom. He developed physically, becoming stronger, healthier and fit to better accomplish His life’s work.
He grew spiritually, learning obedience and trust, understanding Kingdom priorities and eternal realities. He expanded socially and emotionally, able to relate to others, accepting and being accepted by them. Jesus was well-rounded – “whole” – living in perfect balance within Himself, with God, and with others. Grow as Jesus did; God brilliantly made you to live that way. Give attention not to neglect growing spiritually in your knowledge of the Bible and your relationship with God.
I remember being a straight A student as a young teen, but was physically small in height and weight for my age. My growth had not yet been proportional. I faced some social awkwardness due to that. As I continued to grow and develop physically, the process of balance became obvious. Or you have probably known a young teen that has had a growth spurt physically, but is yet lacking the emotional skills to match his or her appearance. People may expect more of them than they are capable of doing or being at that season of their development. Then fitting in and getting along is unnecessarily more difficult than it should have been.
Along the way, one needs to give conscious attention to establishing a well developed balance in all areas of growth – intellectually, physically, socially, and very importantly, spiritually. You can see the sad evidence and added difficulty of developmental imbalance in people’s lives all the time. When you neglect any area of your growth, you diminish the effectiveness of all of them, in some measure. Avoid extremes. Seek a dynamic balance. Balance is not having everything equal; that is unrealistic. Life does not come that neatly packaged. As I understand it, balance is having the “right things in the proper measure and complementary to everything else.”
Honestly examine your inner and outer life occasionally. Adjust and give attention to what is lacking. Strengthen what is weak and adjust what is excessive. Balance is not static; you cannot just get it right one time, and keep it. Balance is dynamic, always needing attention and adjustment to maintain intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual equilibrium. For that you will need wisdom, God’s help, and the loving adjustment of trusting interaction with family and friends.
My prayer for you today is: attend to every area that you may grow into the fullness of Christ.