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In The Balance

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We live in a balance, teetering between joy and pain.  Life in tenuous and at any moment the balance plates can shift.

 

Joy and Pain.   Hope and Despair.  Gratitude and Longing.  This side of Heaven they co-exist.

 

We live sandwiched between the gifts we know deep inside we do not deserve and the unquenchable desire for more.  Acts of mercy inspire us, the scope of injustice saddens us. Unsinkable hope and deep despair, we are capable of both, sometimes simultaneously.

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How we wish we could eliminate pain by embracing joy, but this side of Heaven it is not possible.  We can no more think pain away than we can think true joy into existence. They are both gifts. Pain is a gift because it reminds us that earthly joy (and peace and comfort) do end.   True joy, found in Jesus, is a gift because it is a foretaste of what we will experience when Jesus returns and takes us to live forever where sin (and therefore pain) do not exist. Meanwhile we live in the in between and that creates anxiety.  Joy and Pain. How the balance lies today is not an indication of how it might land tomorrow. We hope for joy and yet brace ourselves for pain.

 

Peace, the opposite of anxiety, is not found where we think it might be.  We look for peace on the other side of tomorrow, when we have successfully avoided the  pain we were hoping to avoid. We look for peace in the place where reality matches our ideas of ideal circumstances.  The problem is, with each tomorrow there is always potential for pain,and circumstances are subject to change. To find peace we must lay down our desire to control our circumstances and choose instead to trust the One who controls all things.  Jesus, Prince of Peace, does not offer to steady the balance or to weight it in a favorable direction, rather He offers His presence in the midst of the ups and downs of life.

 

One day, our Prince of Peace will return to rapture those who know Him as Lord.  In our new and forever home this tenacity we experience will end. The balance will be tipped once and for all and pain….will be no more.  No more despair, no more longing.

 

Meanwhile, do not despise the balance because no matter which way it tips, it can draw you closer to Him.   Life is tenuous, but He who is steadfast will steady you.

 

“Where shall I go from your Spirit?  Or where shall I flee from your presence:  If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!  If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.”  Psalm 139:7-10 (ESV)

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