“God Balance”

 We’re talking about “Surrender” because so many Christians have failed to enter “Rest” and are still “Fighting”. Fighting to keep their head above water. Fighting with the cares of this life. Fighting to prove themself when we’re supposed to be proving God! Except a seed fall to the ground and die, it abides alone. And let that seed be carried by the Wind.

I surrender all, the song says. So why am I still fighting?

Hebrews chapter four speaks of a rest available to us all. A rest connected to the 7th Day when God ceased from all “His” work. He said, It is finished, it is good, and he entered rest. That rest is available to us when we truly surrender, cease from our own works and enter His. We enter His finished work, and we do His work in our life, not our own.

When Jesus said, “It is finished!” If your faith is strong enough, and your love for God great enough, the cares of this world become simply more water off a duck’s back. It’s not that you won’t feel emotions, but we can also have control of those emotions, because no matter what, we know God has a plan for us.

H-O-W-E-V-E-R… If God’s will and God’s plan is not enough for you… T-H-E-N… enter stress, anxiety, lust, envy, fighting, struggle, rat race, fear, etc. etc, etc.. Your life will always be out of balance because like floating on water, there needs to be a surrender.

This world will always disrupt your peace unless you have learned to lay down your own will and flow with the Father. Cease from your own works and rest in God. For the one who has died with Christ, no matter what I wake up to each day, even if it be WWIII has suddenly broke out, nothing changes for me! The desire of my heart is to find God’s will in this day. Not yesterday or tomorrow, but today. And be the Godwalker. Flow in that. Stay in faith, in Spirit, in peace and joy. Can it really be that simple?

Simple yes, but also very deep.

Have we really thought deeply about what Jesus taught? How is it we have read his words and heard his words a thousand times and still don’t get it? Because his words are simple and deep! (And we’re not paying attention.)

Our only explanation for our lack of understanding is we’re not paying attention. We read the Beatitudes and have pictures of pretty butterflies flirting about from flower to flower when that message is actually about losing our own identity and being swallowed up in his! It is a type of death, not dancing butterflies! And it leads to true joy.

Here is a quote, I think from Bo Lozoff: “The cause of all our personal problems, and nearly all the problems of the entire planet, can be summed up in a single sentence: Human life is very deep, and our dominate lifestyle is not.”

Wow…that is what I see in so many people. So busy running here and there trying to grab the golden ring, that they read the Beatitudes and praise the wisdom and beauty of it all while never realizing it’s speaking of their death to flesh! They hear those words “Blessed” at the start of each verse and that is as deep as their brain goes! They claim to love the ocean but they never leave shallow waters! Do they not even realize the lie they’re living? Evidently not.

Mister Rogers, an ordained minister who dared to have a “serious” television show for children, said this: “I feel so strongly that deep and simple are far more essential than shallow and complex.” The evidence seems to support that Mister Rogers lived what he spoke. He was a true believer.

I have dared attempt putting together a “spiritual formula” for finding our “God Balance” after deep thought about the living example of Christ. In other words, WDJD? (What DID Jesus do?) I compare this formula to a jigsaw puzzle. The formula is not complete without all the pieces.

True surrender, a true love for the things of God, is one piece of this puzzle. If there has not been a true DEATH, then how can there be a true resurrection into a newness of life?

Unless the seed falls to the ground and dies…it abides alone…and not only that…but how can it be happy in simplicity? Most struggle is the result of too much complexity we invited in because we wanted too many things too quickly. Or things we would be better off without. So how can we look at the piece of the puzzle known as “simplicity”, how can we get that piece in place if we constantly cause our life to be more and more complicated?

We have barely begun to teach this subject of the “God Balance”: How to find it and love it. I feel led to continue short teachings given more frequently. But if we’re paying attention, if we’re thinking deeply, we should be pondering what did Jesus do that enabled him to walk in such a God Balance as he said was also available to us? A few things make up that formula. I believe simplicity is one of the things the formula will produce. Simplicity is not part of the formula itself.

Lifestyle habits. Of course you’re thinking prayer. Yes, but…perhaps if you have a little bigger picture of a few more pieces, perhaps the prayers will come easier, than they do when our vision is only of shallow waters. Deep calleth unto deep. Follow your heart into deeper waters. There is a rest waiting for us there.