This reflection is from Roy Salmond’s ‘Between the Notes’ blog.
Many years ago, I spoke at a retreat for emerging church leaders from the United States and Canada. After I spoke the host asked if I had a request the group could pray for.
I pondered a bit and then answered: “Balance.”
After the men and women prayed for me, an older gentleman slowly came up and put his hand on my shoulder, speaking in front of everyone:
“I have a word. Balance doesn’t suit you.”
His words have stubbornly stayed with me these past 10-plus years, and their meaning has deepened.
Like many of you, I yearn for balance in my life when I’ve got too much of something – or often not enough of something else: money, time, work, relationships or spiritual fulfillment.
Over the years though, I’ve realized that equilibrium is an almost unattainable ideal, except “as flashes of grace and peace“1 that arrive unsolicited.
I have dear married friends that remark: “We throw each other off balance,” meaning it as an endearing compliment to one another; the demanding variances of life together grow them into being more patient, more giving and loving individuals.
“Real life consists of the tensions produced by the incompatibility of opposites, each of which is needed.”2
Yes, ‘off balance’ is difficult . . . yet it is in the rich soil of real life that peace, from a life of love and service for others, is nourished and grown.
How else can we develop the gifts of perseverance, character and hope without the challenge of being “off balance?”
This truth will set you free . . .
“Balance doesn’t suit you.”
1. Jean Vanier
2. E.F. Schumacher
Roy Salmond has been in the music business for 30 years as a producer/engineer/composer/studio owner, based out of his Whitewater Productions studio in Surrey. He also works as a composer, recording engineer and player for film scores.
This reflection is re-posted by permission from his Between the Notes blog.