I have been thinking lately of balance. Life, especially the christian life is all about finding the balance between different things. I have really been feeling this lately as I endeavor to find the balance between helping and creating a dependency, speaking up and staying quiet, giving what you have freely to help others versus saving for the 'rainy day" that is sure to come. This is a challenge anywhere you are and in any walk of life, but I am finding that the pull between the two oppositional forces becomes much stronger and more apparent when you are placed in a different culture. For example, in your own culture and among your own peers, you are free to pick friends to whom you relate more closely than others. In ministry and missions, you have to balance that with being careful not to play favorites. It is often difficult to see the line between cultural differences and what is right or wrong. It reminds me of walking a tightrope, and while I can handle just about anything, heights is NOT one of them. I was pondering this whole subject and feeling the pressure of it as I read Ecclesiastes..."there is a time and a place for everything under the sun..." when it hit me like a ton of bricks. I AM walking a tightrope, and if I were doing it in my own strength I would have long since been an unsightly pancake of failure on rocks below...but I am NOT. I have a harness that, through prayer, is attached to something much stronger than I, who is above me, and is "able to keep me from falling". WOW!!! I feel so free now. I don't have to worry about being a little to the left or to the right, He will take care of me and can nudge or YANK (depending on my error) me back onto the fine line of balance. That is just SO COOL! I hope I can remember this tomorrow when I wake up...