Being a balanced person is something that both adults and children struggle with. Let your children know that being balanced is not easy, even for adults. However, if young people can learn and apply these principles of being balanced, they will be much closer to achieving balance as adults. A balanced person doesn’t even everything out on a teeter-totter or walk a tightrope between two objectives. Balance is not stacking up an equal amount of work against an equal amount of fun. Rather, balance is achieved when we put God first and then choose correctly between our priorities and pleasures. A balanced person knows when to spend time on priorities and when to relax and enjoy pleasures.
We must decide to place God at the top and give Him first place in our lives. No one else can share this position with God. Also, a balanced person serves no one else but God. He or she does not live for others or for things.
After God is established as the supreme Lord of your life, you must then choose to take care of priorities before pleasures. Men, women, boys, and girls face the struggle of choosing between priorities and pleasures on a daily basis. Our flesh does not particularly want to do the first things first. We really only want to do what we feel like doing! However, if we only did what we wanted to do, very few things of importance would be accomplished in our lives. Although many times it is not easy or fun, we must teach others and ourselves that the only way to be a balanced person is to accomplish our priorities before indulging in pleasures.
Some people are easily distracted or sidetracked. In today’s sensory-overloaded society where everything comes through our eye gate so quickly, it is no wonder that we have a hard time focusing for long periods of time on the most important tasks before us. Even worse than sensory overload are the excuses children have been given to only do what they feel like doing. They have a goal or priority they need to accomplish, but because of distractions of various sizes, shapes, and forms, they lose sight of what they were going to do. Many adults even label this flitting from one thing to another as a medical condition. Keep in mind, however, that choosing priorities before pleasures will help you accomplish more in the long run. It can also enable you to receive blessings from God; having right priorities today can give more joy tomorrow. For instance, buying a can of pop every day is not as rewarding as saving fifty cents a day for a year and buying a bicycle!
By choosing priorities before pleasures, you can still enjoy the right kind of pleasures in your life after you first accomplish your priorities. Balanced people perform their priorities first. They know what needs to be done, and they work before they play. Our priorities are not fun at times, but responsibility will not just go away. Once the priorities are finished, you can enjoy free time. Achieving a balanced life brings glory to God and success to you!
MEMORY VERSE
“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” James 1:8