balancing = sin

Just had a quick conversation with a friend about glorifying God through everything we do. I need to write this before I forget it.

It’s so easy for me to see my spiritual, academic, and social life as a balancing act, like all of life needs to be done in balance to each other. It doesn’t sound too bad. It’s a simple statement that requires little thought and it often consumes my life. I’m not talking about the practical act of balancing, like physically doing one thing vs. another, but the mindset of balancing activities in our minds as if they are completely separate in nature.

While thinking about my future and what it means to glorify God in everything I do, I cant help but find so much sin in that way of thinking for a couple reasons. To me, it suggests that I need to compartmentalize my life in a way that is even - separate, but even. Separate because we can't do everything at once, and even, because if we don't separate evenly, then we will compromise one thing over another. Sounds fine, but it's not.

My recent revelation is that the mindset of balancing promotes that I put God into a box and store him away for however long is convenient to my schedule. That attitude puts God under the bed, no matter how big of a box it is. I’ve stored some expensive, important possessions of mine in boxes. When I moved to college, I stored my most valuable possessions and packed them away until I could open them later. Some things belong in boxes. You can't put God in a box, it's as silly as putting a house into a box. You can't, but we try. God is not a convenience matter, nor is it a compartmentalized one. When I put God into a box, I sin, and I become more and more numb to it as I face the challenges of multiple priorities.

If everything I do, from the smallest activities of eating and drinking to the big decisions of choosing a career, is done to glorify God, then NOTHING is balanced, nor compartmentalized. Instead, EVERYTHING is wholly devoted to one thing, God, but through different means.

So since everything I do should be in effort to glorify God, then I can't be limited in striving to see Him glorified through direct means only, but through indirect means, as well.

The question is not: "how do I balance my life efficiently," but should be, "How do I understand more fully how to glorify You even when I can't see the direct result."

Those direct results are what we experience when we sing worship songs, read the bible, or go to church. The indirect results are what we do when we don’t sing worship songs, read the bible, or go to church.

God is the giver of life, not just part of our lives.