On the Myth of Balance

There’s a sign on the classroom door that says Mrs. K. Sept - K/1 Music.  It still looks strange to me and I’ve been unlocking that door twice a week since last September.

When people started hearing that I had taken the job, one of the most common responses I received was, “How can you handle adding that to your life?”

I actually didn’t need the reminder of how “full” my life seemed.  I too was wondering just how I was going to manage it all.

My answer to their query usually started with me repeating the question (because that’s what you do when you’re unsure of the answer…) “How can I handle all this?  Well I have absolutely no idea."  Truth is, I was pretty sure I couldn’t!  What I did know for certain, was that God was calling me to this job at this time - of that I had no doubt.

Perhaps taken back by my answer, people began to offer their own suggestions: “Well then, perhaps God’s going to teach you better balance through all of this!” they said.  And I thought, “Yes, that’s it isn’t it?!  Balance!  I’m finally going to learn how to multi-task, be more organized and efficiently divide up my time and energy!”

Other people offered a different suggestion: “Make sure you build in time to take care of yourself!” They warned.  “Go to the spa!  Schedule “me-time” regularly and make a plan to get enough sleep!”

I began to strategize all kinds of ways to achieve the elusive balance in the midst of a full life; make more schedules, prioritize my to-do list, offload more housework to my children, read the books that explain how to do all the things.

However in the end it just made me feel more stressed, more full and definitely...more exhausted.

What I really wanted after 11 years staying at home to raise my kids was some real rest.  

I prayed in earnest and although adding a teaching job to the mix of my life didn’t sound like the way to get that rest, I remained certain that God was leading in this direction.

One Sunday during that season I found myself in church listening to my pastor give an illustration using The Cat in the Hat.  As the familiar picture of that silly cat balancing on the ball filled the giant screen I heard myself in his melodic rhetoric:

“I can hold up the cup and the milk and the cake I can hold up these books! And the fish on a rake!  Look at me!  Look at me now! said the cat.  With a  cup and a cake on the top of my hat.  I can hold up TWO books I can hold up the fish!  And a little toy ship! And some milk in a dish!"

I knew what loomed on the next page.  He didn’t need to keep reading...but he did. 

 "This is what the cat said.  Then he fell on his head.  He came down with a bump from up there on the ball.  And Sally and I…we saw ALL the THINGS FALL."

I don’t remember the rest of the sermon that day, but I remember the realization dawning on me that that’s exactly where I was headed.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep it all up in the air.  Eventually all the things would fall.

The image stuck with me and it was soon after that I came face to face with Colossians 1. 

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth…all things have been created through him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Col. 1:15-17

In Him all things hold together. 

What a counter cultural idea.  The world had convinced me that I hold all things together.  My family, my home, the women’s ministry at my church, now K/1 Music, somehow I had believed the lie that it was my job to hold all things together…that it all rested on my narrow shoulders…that I was the centre. 

And that in order to ever find rest…. I needed to be able to successfully balance it all.

God continued to speak to me in that season through a book called Humble roots: How Humility grounds and nourishes your soul. In her book Hannah Anderson points to Genesis 2 as evidence that while we as humans were made to rule over the earth, we were also made from the earth.

“Perhaps even more significantly we only came alive by God spirit. Without God‘s breath and us we are nothing but a pile of dirt.” (Anderson, 65)

And the earthy imagery continues its flow through the narrative of scripture: David's song in Psalm 103 declaring that God has compassion on mankind because He remembers “that we are dust,” Jeremiah and the analogy of humanity as a lump of clay on the potter’s wheel, Jesus’ parable of the sower that likens the human heart to types of soil and Paul reminding the church at Corinth that we are “jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

     “Even more interestingly the English words human and humility share a common Latin root “humus” which means dirt, earth or ground.  Ancient Hebrew reveals a similar linguistic pattern.  In the Genesis narrative the word Adam is a collective noun meaning “humankind” and comes from the Hebrew word “adamah” which means ground.  Linguistically at least there is an intrinsic connection between the ground, our humanity and humility. 

      In other words humility begins by remembering where we come from. Humility begins by remembering that to be human is to be dirt. Humility begins by remembering that we are dust and to dust we shall return.” (Anderson, 66)

As it turns out God didn’t want to teach me balance.  And he didn’t want to teach me how to take better care of myself either. He needed to teach me something abundantly more important:  He wanted to teach me that I’m Not God.  That all things are not held together BY ME, FOR ME AND THROUGH ME even though some days it feels that way.  And chasing after this lie of balance, this grasping at all the horizontal means of rest that culture offers me was distracting me from the soul nourishing, long lasting rest He offers to pour into me vertically through such humility.

Hannah Anderson sums it up perfectly: 

And suddenly we see where we fit in the narrative: facedown in the dust.  We are not called to embody Jesus ourselves; He has already been incarnated and is still even now!  No we are not called to be Jesus; we are called to fall at His feet and worship Him.  We are called to affirm that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth..  And it is through this worship, through recognizing His rightful place, that we are finally humbled, that we experience the soul rest, the Sabbath we were created to know.

I do not have this all figured out, but God continues to show me all the ways making myself low and acknowledging my limits always leads me to the freeing recognition and worship of the One who is limitless by all accounts.  The One Who holds all things together - in perfect balance  - He knows and loves me.  And you too.  HE ALONE offers true soul rest.

The truth is…I think all of us would admit to feeling as though our lives these days are full.  Your schedule and list of dailies might not look like mine but I can imagine all kinds of things and people that take up space in your head and heart.  I imagine the hours of your day are mostly spoken for….And that many of us would admit to feeling overwhelmed with all of it at times.

While I might hope to yell “look at me, look at me, look at me now!” to all those around me, and have them look and see me perched effortlessly on the ball, expertly juggling all the things, they are far better served by the truth…seeing me flat on my face, one arm extended pointing to the one who actually does hold all things together.  

May you see Him today too in all His glory.