Life Balance

What keeps you awake at night?

4 Comments / Life Balance, Overcoming /

What keeps you awake at night? The answer to that question could be a key to unlocking a new found freedom in your life. It gets to the very heart of where you struggle the most in trusting God. Carefully considering that question is like taking a diagnostic test, it reveals your growing edge of faith.

I recently spent an evening doing an informal poll of as many websites as I could find that provided lists and discussions addressing that insomnia related question. The following list of twelve categories is a compilation and condensation of all the things people admitted were keeping them awake. For simplicity’s sake I have not included dietary (food and caffeine) or medical reasons for sleeplessness.

As you read through the list, which ones can you admit are things that keep you awake?

What keeps you awake at night? Read More »

The best way to start a day

4 Comments / Growth & Development, Life Balance, Relationship with God /

“Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening.” Ecclesiastes 11:6 (NAS) The mother of all time management principles is summed up in this verse. It was penned nearly 3000 years ago by King Solomon, one of the wisest and most accomplished men who ever lived. History has confirmed the wisdom of these words and many similar sayings have worked their way into our everyday vocabulary since that time. “Make hay while the sun shines.” – John Heywood 1546. “The early bird gets the worm.” – John Ray 1670. “He who hesitates is lost.” – Joseph Addison 1713. And last but not least “Big rocks first!” popularized most recently by Steven Covey’s “first things first” principle.

What all these sayings have in common is this. Each new day dawns streaming with bright potential through windows of opportunity, but we must use it or we’ll lose it.

The best way to start a day Read More »

3 lessons I wish I had learned earlier in life

3 Comments / Life Balance, Window into my Soul /

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

Some lessons I wish I had learned earlier in life. It’s been said that experience is the best teacher. Unfortunately that is not necessarily the case. Actually the best teacher is evaluated experience. Only those who seek to learn from bad experiences are destined not to repeat them. Evaluated experience leads to wisdom. And there is no better source of wisdom than perspective that comes from God inspired evaluation.

That is what this short prayer from Psalm 90 is all about. It is a prayer that I now pray frequently and have adopted as one of my life verses. It is noteworthy that Moses is the author of this Psalm. There is probably no one better qualified than him to pray so authoritatively for wisdom. After spending forty years exile in the wilderness evaluating his deadly misjudgments in Egypt he knew what it meant to number his days aright. And the heart of wisdom God imparted to him during that time positioned him at age eighty to begin a forty year run as one of the greatest leaders of all time.

3 lessons I wish I had learned earlier in life Read More »

Managing life’s tensions

6 Comments / Life Balance /

Last week at the Willow Creek Association’s annual Leadership Summit I heard a great message entitled the Upside of Tension. It was given by Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church in Georgia. His premise was that there are some tensions in life and in the church that are not meant to be resolved. In fact solving them will likely just create new tensions. They are tensions that are to be managed and not to be solved. Andy’s point was that proper management of them actually produces great benefit and progress.

Managing life’s tensions Read More »

Scroll to Top