How to Balance Your Life and Ministry

Written by Rick Ezell

Your first step to finding balance is to admit that you are part of the problem. When you look at your busier than busy schedule, isn’t it true that you pack much of it on yourself?

Stress Management (Felt Need Series)

Next, you need to stop and consider what you are doing. To stop the frantic pace you are living, you need to cease your activity for a period of time to determine what you are doing and why. You should not merely slow down. You need to completely stop. There is a huge difference.

You need to ask your family and yourself some questions:

• Is the frantic pace I’m on worth it?
• How will this continued pace impact my family, my health, my ministry?
• Will these things matter in eternity?

Most important in the quest to regain balance, you need to check your spiritual barometer. The reason many people’s lives are out of balance is because of something internal, not because of something external on a calendar. Often it is not because of something physical, but because of something spiritual.

Our compulsion to do more and more is used to try to fill a void that burns within our souls. We long for satisfaction, acceptance, and belonging. We can’t find that ultimately in people, places, promotions, or prestige. We can only find that in a love relationship with Jesus. As ministers, we are often so bent on making everything right in our external world that we neglect our own souls.

Solomon wrote, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Prov. 4:23, NIV). When the heart and soul are in proper alignment with God then the life will be balanced. Reading books, listening to tapes, and attending conferences about balance are worthless if you neglect your soul.

Perhaps the problem with balance is not one of balance at all. It may be a faith problem. It is perhaps not a problem of too many physical demands but one of a lack of spiritual obedience.

If you find yourself in a state of imbalance, what can you do to regain balance? Here are five things you can do that will help:

1. Be decisive in what matters most. Don’t engage in activities that are not important. Don’t miss the best for something good. Ask for help.
2. Live with margin. Margin is having breath at the top of the staircase, money left at the end of the month, and time between appointments. Be willing to wait.
3. Never lose your focus. Keep your eyes on what God has called you to do.
4. Concentrate on your gifts. Wise up and say yes to the best that you can offer and give. Sometimes in our efforts to win approval we give in to the lesser things, and our energy is wasted working outside our giftedness.
5. Eliminate the unnecessary. Many of the things we engage in are not necessarily wrong – they are simply not necessary. We need to develop the skill of discretionary neglect.

Life is not a crowded to-do list but a blank stretch of canvas. It is not trying to balance all of the demands of our lives but simply doing this day what God would have us to do. Then, and only then, will you find balance.