His Divine Invitation

One of my favorite verses is Ephesians 1:18-19. Lately, I've been drawn to it again and again. This morning, I felt I needed more from my NIV translation, so I went back to the original meanings.

Just wanted to share the blessing:


I also pray that the eyes, the faculaty of knowing of your mind, your way of thinking, will be illuminated, be informed and imbued with saving knowledge that you may perceive, discern, discover, pay attention to, behold what is the hope, the joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation of His divine invitation to embrace the salvation of God, and what are the riches, the fulness, abundance, splendor, and majesty of His inheritance, the eternal blessedness of the consummated kingdom of God in the saints, and what is the transcending, the exceeding greatness of His strength, ability, influence and power to us who believe, who think to be true, who trust, who acknowledge and entrust, according to the efficient working of His forceful and mighty power and strength ...

Seek Balance

Everyone has memories from their school days that, to this day, make them either laugh or shutter. For me, gym class was one of those classes that brought laughter and fear together. Whenever the teacher said we were beginning gymnastics, most students cheered, happy to leave behind volleyball nets and exercise mats. Not so for me.

I remember the first time I saw a balance beam up close. I panicked. Was my teacher kidding? Walk across an unbelievably narrow board raised to what I was certain was a ridiculous height, go to the end, turn around, and walk back – all without falling to my death.

It took three tries before I could even get on that thing. I think I was hoping that the teacher would get frustrated and just send me to the back of the line and forget about me. Finally, after the teacher and another student finally hoisted me up there, I froze. The beam seemed to disappear as fear and anxiety began to creep up my legs and into my throat. Jolted back to reality by the teacher’s angry voice, I tried to lift my foot. It didn’t get more than two inches off the beam before I fell off. Humiliated and somewhat relieved, I stumbled to the back of the line praying for the bell to ring.

After class, the teacher took me aside. I told her that I thought that my body just could not balance – I was too tall-too awkward. She said that the problem was not my body, but my mind. She said that whenever I lost focus, looked down at the ground or around at the other students, I stopped trusting what my feet were feeling beneath me. I could certainly balance when I tried to walk a straight line directly on the ground. But once I saw that the board was high and that there was the possibility of falling off, I became fearful and that was what caused me to lose my balance. She said fear always affects our ability to balance.

Although those balance beam memories are far behind me, I never forgot her words: fear affects balance. They came back strong one day when I was praying about restoring balance to my life. I had allowed fear and distraction to create an imbalance in my thinking and in my decisions.

But what exactly is balance to the believer? In Scripture, the word does not appear as such. But when you consider that the idea of balance means a leveling, the verses abound. You see, when we want to correct something in our lives, we have this tendency to swing from one extreme to the other.

What corrects this pendulum sway? We need to center ourselves in Christ and allow Him to lead us on level ground - to make our paths straight and smooth, and to guide and bring us into a level and balanced place. Because sin entered the world and created an imbalance not only in the natural world but within us as well, it takes the saving and restoring power of God to take away the fear and tendency to shift and sway.

Balance and communication? Just consider how hard it is to concentrate and carry on a meaningful conversation when standing on the deck of a boat that is tossing and turning, pitching back and forth. Physically, your balance is thrown off – it is not long before a sense of distraction and fear take hold.

Father of all that is straight and level, help me to fix my eyes on You and not allow fear and distraction to shift me off my course.

Check out: Isa. 40:4; Psalm 143:10; Proverbs 4:26