I hope God has a place in your life—and not just at Christmas or Easter. Sadly, our society is drifting away from Christian moorings that have kept us safe and pointed in the right direction for so many decades.
At the risk of offending, I wish to simply state that God and family should be the center of our lives.
When it is all said and done, if we substitute work, career and money for God and family we will eventually be left holding fool’s gold and great regret.
How do we balance work, family and God? There are no easy answers here but my best explanation is to listen to that voice inside your mind and heart (some people call it your gut) and be mindful that although we must be successful enough to take care of our families, there are times when the briefcase, laptop and work assignment needs to be set down in exchange for family and worship.
I have an example that illustrates this balance. Think about the law of gravity.
We may consider, in a very general sense, two opposite gravitational results:
First, the notorious black hole, where there is so much gravity that everything in its proximity, including light, risks being sucked in the black hole and disappearing forever.
I have watched enough Star Trek to know that black holes ain’t worth messin’ with!
The second example, on the opposite side of the spectrum, is zero gravity. This might seem cool at first but consider how life on earth would change if we didn’t have enough gravity to keep from floating away or keeping the earth in the proper orbit around the sun. The effects would be devastating and life on earth would be impossible.
The lesson to be learned here is quite simple but also very complex—we cannot survive too much gravity or zero gravity. The fact is, we need the exact right amount of gravity to make it all work.
If we have enough faith to trust God with gravity and his management of the universe, then it might be wise to trust him when it comes to work and family as well.
Work, family and worship need to be carefully managed—we cannot work too much or too little. We must hit our stride just right.
When we insert God into that equation, we can be more confident that we will get the balance just right. There are times to work and times to rejoice—six days to work and one day to rest.
Listening to our inner voice will help us find the right balance. More importantly, it will give us a recipe for success in all three areas—God, family and work.
God and family, in my humble opinion, are the heartbeat of humanity. When times are good, it can be easy to forget God, but most of us have enough experience to know that life brings natural trouble. If we are slow to hear God while life is good, then we can be fairly certain He will be slow to hear us when we are praying for help.
There are so many loud voices and alluring distractions that claim these time-tested Godly virtues have become outdated, old-fashioned and even evil. Be smart enough to realize it is quite the opposite—never in our country’s history have these values and beliefs been more important. We need God more than ever before. Our families are more important than ever before. Hard work and a commitment to family self-reliance is more important than ever before.
Don’t forget Him and He will not forget you—and this last axiom that I have heard so many times: work like it all depends on you and pray like it all depends on God.
If we can center ourselves with this correct balance, we will find that there is no challenge we cannot overcome and no joy so wonderful as living.