Centering on Jesus does
Life looks like spinning plates, with you in the middle trying to keep everything up without you falling down. Sometimes life feels like a circus, and you are the act on the high wire. To fully live the abundant life, somehow you have to achieve balance.
Just ask Nikolas "Nik" Wallenda, famous acrobat, aerialist, daredevil, high wire artist, and holder of nine Guinness World Records.
Perhaps you were one of 23 million people in the U.S. who watched him live on the Discovery Channel in 2013 when he became the first person to cross the Grand Canyon on a wire – untethered, 1,500 feet above the Little Colorado River, with wind gusts measured up to 48 miles per hour.
In his book Balance: A Story of Faith, Family and Life on the Line, Nik writes:
“God is my center. God’s grace is the balancing pole that keeps me from falling into self-obsession and self-deceptions. Whatever I have achieved––and will ever achieve––is the result of my relationship with Him.”
More than a billion TV viewers watched as Nik walked across the roaring of Niagara, as he prayed aloud every step of the way. Then he returned the next day, and spent more than three hours picking up trash left by the crowds to keep fame and glory at bay. Balance is about centering.
The biomechanics of acrobats are maintaining balance by positioning their center of mass directly over their base of support. The most critical part is how stable and reliable is your base of support.
For example, one of my friends is also a client. The first time I met her I heard her high heels clicking down the marble hallway. I looked up to see a sharply dressed, 15-year, experienced executive. She currently serves as director of business strategy for a 5,000-employee information company. She is married, has one young child, takes care of her mom and works 70 hours a week at her job.
Diagnosis: Life out of balance. Treatment regime: Get God-centered with Scripture and prayer. Recently she sent me this email with verses as part of her weekly plan.
“Meditate and pray on Isaiah 58:11-12 continuously (that's very meaningful to me)”
And the Lord will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins;
You will raise up the age-old foundations;
And you will be called the repairer of the breach,
The restorer of the streets in which to dwell.
My proposal is that your base of support––upon which you center your whole being––is GOD the Father, His Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Your spirit and soul––your mind, will and emotion––abide in Christ and are changed from glory to glory. Everything else in your life––all that you hold dear––is brought into alignment with the One True God.
Stay centered in Jesus every step across work-life tightrope. Balance will follow.
