A year after Dad retired, he semi-jokingly said he couldn’t understand how he used to do all his daily duties in addition to a full-time job. I didn’t get it then. Now in retirement myself, I finally do. Life tumbles in. We all juggle so many demands that we get stressed, we get short-tempered, we get rushed. I still have to craft a weekly schedule of needed tasks that go beyond daily duties. This week features 22 tasks and 9 major appointments. This is retirement? 😉
Last Sunday our pastor examined a passage on the seasons of life, and two verses struck me. A solution to help us decide how to juggle life. How to choose between all the demands on our time and energy and resources. Two principles on setting priorities. Two principles to help us decide what to say yes or no to. Two simple steps to a balanced life.
“I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God” (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13).
Grammatically, Solomon uses parallelism. The first sentence names the two, the second defines them. “Be happy…eat and drink.” “Do good…find satisfaction in toil.” Or, in Tim’s paraphrase, “take care of yourself and enjoy life, and take care of others.”
We need that balance. Just taking care of ourselves leads to self-absorption, and making little impact on others. We view others as tools to help us. A pretty hollow life. But just taking care of others leads to draining ourselves so much we can’t continue to do good for them. Counterproductive.
God gifts us with two principles to balance all of the demands we face. Enjoy life ourselves. Eat and drink and enjoy the physical pleasures of life wisely. And we touch others for good. We grow beyond ourselves. Rather than hectically and randomly trying to juggle life, let’s balance those two principles. We can intentionally evaluate what we do, requests that others make, new opportunities by how can we find equilibrium. We can do both. We can determine which category each aspect represents, and keep a balance of both. Remember, these two are God’s gifts. Let’s use them both well.
Kick Starting the Application
Do you find yourself on one end of the spectrum of self-care and other-care? What lead to that? Do you sense God convicting you to get a better balance? Do you have some current activities that you’d benefit by saying no to?