Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Keeping Your Balance


Write His Answer, a Bible Study for Christian Writers, by Marlene Bagnull, is a book I picked up at the Write to Publish conference two weeks ago. The Lord is using Marlene’s insights to cement my commitment to Him and His call on my life.

Yesterday the chapter I studied was “Keeping in Balance.” Quoting her writing mentor, Marlene stated, “life is like a table with four legs. If any one of those legs is too short or too long, the table is wobbly.” She told how she had to spend some time with the Lord getting her priorities straight, as she was using up too much time writing, and neglecting her family and friends. She also realized that her relationship with God could not be one of the legs; it had to be the floor upon which her “table” sat.

In my case, my table has six legs. Family, friends, work, ministry, writing, self. All must be in balance, or I fall apart, and the “food” I’ve prepared to nourish others tumbles to the ground, useless. Lord, help me to keep my life in the proper balance so those I love do not suffer. Help me to not have writing for You as my goal, but loving and knowing You. May my writing flow from my relationship with You.

13 comments:

  1. Sounds like an awesome devotional! I'm going to check into getting it! And I love the analogy of the table and God being the foundation. You have a wonderful way of putting things: I definitely want to have my writing flow from my relationship with God, but I know it doesn't always do that! Have a blessed day, Jeanette!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jody: Thanks for your kind words; you are always lifting others up. May the Lord lift you up as you need it. dear.

    I highly recommend this book for any writer who is serious about their call.

    Blessings, Jen

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great thought--life like a table! God=the floor. Thanks for the new thought and for helping remind me that I need to saw down some legs for the correct level of balance. :D
    ~ Wendy

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wendy: Wow, sawing down some legs, excellent word picture! Sounds dramatic, but sometimes necessary, huh?
    Blessings,
    Jen

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love this devotional and keep rereading it. So many nuggets within it. God is really using it, at least for me He is.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love this analogy. I love her writings too:) It's so true--we have to keep balance in our lives or nothing goes as it should.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Eileen: Oh that's so great. I didn't know anyone else who's read it. It would make a perfect gift for any writer.
    Blessings, Jen

    Terri: I think balance is a challenge for us all, writers or otherwise. Satan loves to get us distracted with unimportant details, to steal our time away from the good stuff, like relationships.
    Blessings, Jen

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love how the author wrote that God is the floor. So true! Even if our table is balanced, if our floor is not Jesus than it's going to be awfully wobbly and the table may fall anyways. I think I've heard of this book before. It sounds good.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Yes, I expected her to say that Jesus is one of the legs, but it makes better sense that He be the foundation of our lives, not just one aspect of it.

    Thanks for coming by. Blessings,
    Jen

    ReplyDelete
  10. God as our foundational floor, amen and amen. And I do see the Spirit of God in your writing. All God's "chillin" recognize each other too. Thank you for that review.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Karen: Thank you for your kind compliment; you are so sweet and gracious.
    Blessings on your family,
    Jen

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thank you for sharing what you took away from the devotions. Balance is so hard! I struggle every day. Writing in the morning, kids all afternoon, evenings off. But I find myself wanting to write, or check blogs, or scratch down ideas in the evenings too.

    I try to remind myself it's not a race, but I'm so excited about writing, it's really hard not to want to run instead of walk.

    Have a wonderful day!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Jill: Thank YOU for sharing this insight. I, too, want to run, without looking back, even! I keep hearing the Holy Spirit say, "These things take time." Our society is overly prone to instant everything, and that's not good; makes us impatient.

    May the Lord grant us wisdom to stay balanced,
    Jen

    ReplyDelete

Oh, it's YOU! I'm so happy to see you here today, and look forward to reading your comments.