The Ultimate Balance: Resting Faith In Christ & Taking Dutiful Action

Hebrews 10:24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works

In life there is often a balance we must seek after, finding good measures of various attitudes and actions to find a happy medium in life. The struggle to find this difficult balance can best be summed in the shortened version of the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

This is a difficult balance for anyone to maintain in this world. I've struggled greatly with this dilemma myself. How much do I rest in God and his plan? Conversely, how much do I take action and do the necessary foot work?

These two questions will determine the level of peace I have in my heart. If I step too far into the side of resting faith in God, my actions and activism begin to drop off and eventually that damages my faith. If I step too far into the realm of action and attempting change I run the risk of losing my peace in the hopelessness of changing situations outside my control.

What is the healthy balance?

We're asking the question of balance. This is fundamental, but how little it seems to be discussed. What can I change and what can't I change? How does peace of mind and calling to action play into the equation of daily life?

This is a very difficult one for me. Because I'm very sensitive to this kind of thing.

When I read a news story about Monsanto pouring millions of dollars into ads to prevent GMO labeling, it just slays me. It slays me because I know it's so wrong, on so many levels. When I read about the lobbyists in the current presidential administration, I just want to lay down in a corner and collapse internally. It's terrible. And most people just don't know, and they don't care, and they don't want to know. My spirit just cries out to the Lord: "How can it be? How can it be this lost?"

It breaks my heart you see. The United States, the Christian nation, having been so plundered inside and out, so corrupted in politics, in banking, in media, and in business. It slays me every time.

Even further, the slanted news reporting the mainstream media news, Fox, CNN, all the rest. It's scary, how the truth never comes out. How lies become truth! Even further, to the Hollywood industry, how stars like Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus are used to turn the kids who idolize them into drug addicted, sex crazy immoral monsters. Monsters that will later be wielded against the former Christian majority. I can hardly handle it day by day.

And still, even further, before my very eyes, where I work at the shelter, watching people stuck in the same old patterns, same old addictions, they leave, they come back, they get sober, they relapse, it's enough to drive a man completely insane with the existential horror of it all. This is a very ugly world! And I haven't even mentioned war, disease, genocide, or world hunger yet. Wild!

What is peace? How can we have it? I'm known to go too far into action, and not far enough into resting trust. On the other end of the spectrum are those who take too little action in response to their faith in God. The Bible says such faith is useless (James 2:26).

There are many dualities in this world, and in ourselves, and even in our God:

Jesus came full of grace and truth.

God the Father is mercifully forgiving, and a just judge.

The Holy Spirit both comforts us and convicts us.

There is a time to love people and show mercy, and another time to explain the truth and give justice.

What can I change? If I can change it, then I will champion it as my cause.

What can't I change? If I can't change it, then I must accept it as it is.

John 16:33 says I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

And as it says in Mark 6:31 "And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat."

There is a time to act, and a time to rest.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (ESV) "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing"