City Life Starter

I. The Word: LUKE 6:12-13, 17-19

12 It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the
whole night in prayer to God.
13 And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them,
whom He also named as apostles . . . .
17 Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large
crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem
and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon,
18 who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were
troubled with unclean spirits were being cured.
19 And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him
and healing them all.

II. Study Questions

1. Has your goal been to have a balanced lifestyle?

2. Is this a Biblical expectation or ideal?

3. What should you strive for instead of balance?

There is a popular saying among Christians these days. It is the ideal of the so-called balanced lifestyle. It posits that one should have a healthy balance between work, family, church, and recreation. A certain amount of time should be allocated to each one of these areas of our lives, and we are told we should exercise the discipline to maintain that balance. If you have to work a 60 hour week, stay up all night to finish a project, or spend an excessive or unplanned amount of time in one or more of these lifestyle boxes, you have fallen out of balance and lost your spiritual center.

The problem I have with the idea of a balanced lifestyle is not that I don’t think it sounds good, it’s that I don’t see it in the Bible, and I certainly don’t see it in Jesus’ lifestyle. One day Jesus goes off and spends all night in prayer. He calls His disciples to him and then they go down to a large crowd of people who have come from all over wanting something from Jesus. Some wanted to hear Jesus teach and others wanted to be healed. On no sleep, Jesus ministers to them and stays until He heals all them all. (Luke 6:12-13, 17-19)

On a different day, Jesus heals Peter’s mother. The word spreads and before too long all the sick of Capernaum are lined up at the door. Jesus spends the evening healing and casting out demons–a full day in anyone’s book. But the next day, before dawn, Jesus is already gone off to a secluded place to pray. By the time Jesus’ disciples find Him to tell him the crowds are looking for Him, He’s already spent enough time in prayer to know that it’s time to leave to go the next city. (Mark 1:30-39).

Life is far too random and contains too many variables to reasonably conclude a predictable, balanced, stress-free lifestyle can be maintained for any length of time without elevating balance over obedience to God. The idea of a balanced lifestyle presupposes that life comes at us in measured, predictable, quantities, and we know it does not. The idea of a balanced lifestyle also assumes our comfort is more important than our calling. If Jesus’ goal was a balanced lifestyle He could have put off praying all night and He could have declined the opportunity to spend an evening healing and casting out demons, but He didn’t do what balance dictated but what He saw the Father doing.

III. APPLICATION

I don’t seek balance anymore; I seek presence. I seek to be fully present wherever I am. That is what I see in these examples with Jesus. Wherever He was, he was fully there for the people or task that was in front of him. When I am at work I try to be fully engaged with my work instead of thinking about what I am going to do when I get home. When I am home with my wife, I try to be fully engaged with her, not thinking about work and not taking calls from clients. That is what my work deserves; that is what my wife deserves, and it has nothing to do with balance.