Balance

I've come from a very conservative religious background.  There weren't any extreme sports when I was young but there was extreme religion.  Based on a shallow understanding of Revelation 3:15-16, which reads, "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!  So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth." I thought there was only one way to perceive things and one way to approach them.  To do otherwise, to any degree was to straddle the fence or become lukewarm and fit only to be spit out.

I didn't see myself as a fundamenttalist or as narrow-minded.  I thought I was committed to t he truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  I thought the church to which I was a part had the full and complete, unadulterated, unchangeable and unbending tuth.  In my mind, everyone who didn't agree with us on every biblical issue was heretical and, of course, lost.

I had no doubts, mostly because I had no idea.  Even though the apostle Paul was so plain in saying, "One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God," (Rom 14:5-6), I thought there was no give, no balance - only hard-core, hard-pressed in one direction.

I completely missed the simple truth Solomon shared in Eclesiastes 7:18, "The man of God will avoid all extremes."  The inescapable reality is that anything moved to far to either the right or the left is out of adjustment or lacking balance.  To stay in the middle isn't straddling the fence so much as it is staying on the bridge.  Too far to the right or left is to careen off the bridge to disaster below.

The disaster in our political  landscape of the day is that far too many are posturing on the far left or the far right.  Neither side wants to work with or work things out with the other.  Each side hods the other in contempt and simply does not seek to find middle ground.  Each side is working hard to erect walls between them and the other instead of building bridges.

I know that the two sides are diverse, that they have different ideas about what to do when.  One want to move on an issue, the other want to hold fast.  Next time they will switch places, each side digging in, insisting their way is the only way.  I've noticed that cars have both an accelerator and a brake. Both are quite useful though polar different.  Both have a function and are meant to be used together in concert.  You can't use them both at the same time, that causes on tension.  You can't use only one ever for that will lead to going nowhere or going too far.  You must use them in a harmony that allows for braking and accelerating in order to safely arrive at your destination.

Did you know a successful marriage will employ the same principle?  Do you suppose a successful business uses both?  Does not the ability to turn right and left, stop and go, and move forward and reverse seem to be a good idea?  Does not balance seem like something to achieve rather run away from  to the extreme?

I'm not suggesting that there is not a right and wrong path; Jesus is clear that both exist (cf. Matt 7:13-14).  What I am saying is that to travel the path, which leads to life, one needs to start/stop, turn right/left, move forward/backward.  We need to be able to stop when we start getting off the path.  We need to back up when we've gone too far in one direction, we need to turn back to the right or to the left when we begin to stray.  What I am saying is that godly, right-thinking people will have balance.  Jus' Say'n.