Finding balance seems both desperately important and consistently difficult. I don't want to be too afraid to speak up against meanness or foolishness, but I don't want to provoke harm to the child or elder I want to protect. I want to be helpful to a young mother struggling with tired children in the check-out line, but I don't want her to feel judged or vulnerable. I want to offer kindness to my neighbor without being a busybody. I want to be the best employee or volunteer I can be, but with appropriate acknowledgement for others whose variety of gifts were essential to the good outcome.
And, I would prefer to do this in a manner that does not leave me feeling frozen between the choices or so exhausted from the struggle I am too frustrated to actually do what I eventually feel might be helpful.
Life was less exhausting when I was more certain I knew what needed to be done in any situation I faced. But there was definitely collateral damage when my Idea of how to help proved less than perfect.
So my trip from "knows it all" to "knows nothing for sure" may be called enlightenment, but it left me no further forward in finding and embracing purpose in my life. I found some comfort in this: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven," written in Ecclesiastes 3:1. Yet this book of Ecclesiastes has as its major point the fact that nothing on this Earth is more than second best to our relationship with God.
So I am very grateful that when I am able to bring kindness or information or a message of hope to someone, I do not have to do it perfectly, because God is able to shut their ears to my errors and make my simple gestures or words bring blessings. This is not because I am so smart or strong or gifted, but because as God pours love on His children, I enjoy the great blessing of Grace when He allows me to be used in His service.
Sometimes the struggle itself becomes sin when we let our fear become an excuse for not growing more fully available to be kind, generous or helpful because we might do it wrong. Part of faith is trusting God to fix us as we go.
And, I would prefer to do this in a manner that does not leave me feeling frozen between the choices or so exhausted from the struggle I am too frustrated to actually do what I eventually feel might be helpful.
Life was less exhausting when I was more certain I knew what needed to be done in any situation I faced. But there was definitely collateral damage when my Idea of how to help proved less than perfect.
So my trip from "knows it all" to "knows nothing for sure" may be called enlightenment, but it left me no further forward in finding and embracing purpose in my life. I found some comfort in this: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven," written in Ecclesiastes 3:1. Yet this book of Ecclesiastes has as its major point the fact that nothing on this Earth is more than second best to our relationship with God.
So I am very grateful that when I am able to bring kindness or information or a message of hope to someone, I do not have to do it perfectly, because God is able to shut their ears to my errors and make my simple gestures or words bring blessings. This is not because I am so smart or strong or gifted, but because as God pours love on His children, I enjoy the great blessing of Grace when He allows me to be used in His service.
Sometimes the struggle itself becomes sin when we let our fear become an excuse for not growing more fully available to be kind, generous or helpful because we might do it wrong. Part of faith is trusting God to fix us as we go.
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