Life’s Imbalances
Be cautious, and be alert concerning your excessive desires; see – to – it that they are proper and in balance if you hope to be happy and prosperous in the Lord. Excessive and careless desires can create an imbalance in life that will short-circuit the connection with the power that stabilizes our life in harmony with our inner spirit and outward environment.
Excessive desires burden the spirit with empty substitutes that will not enrich your life—substitutes that sap your love-energy by enslaving you with nonessential expense and time consuming burdens that do not add substantially to your happiness.
Spending too much energy on the nonessentials will consume prayer time, time for benevolence, and time to give our fair share of support to our society and environment. Our lives can become so cluttered with nonessentials that the energy producing essentials vanish unaware.
Prayer time is energy-receiving time; this time can be fulfilled in various ways: mediation, worship, communication with Yahweh, praise (in music, songs or otherwise), or in Bible study. If all these circuits are shut off, the body’s only recourse is to depend on earthly power.
In Ephesians 2:1-7, Paul encourages the believers, saying, “And you has he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath (desire), even as others.
“Yahweh, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved;), And has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Yasha: That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Yasha.”
If we return to the beggary elements of the world after we have become connected with the Life-force, the body becomes totally out of balance.
Excessive noise around us can also short-circuit our spirit connection to Life-energy by cluttering and confusing the brain nerves with negative vibrations. This soon starves the soul of vital energy. Our life gradually becomes stressful and chaotic; excess clutter will have created a destructive imbalance in our spirit-energy.
People who short-circuit their Life-energy wreck their lives without knowing they are responsible. The unhappier they become, the more they grasp for material things, new human relationships, and the worldly entertainment to fill the vacuum created by their spirit’s imbalance. This is comparable to an alcoholic seeking liquor to stop himself from staggering and falling. If people, who have experienced a spiritual awakening, allow their spirit to starve, that is, if they do not awaken to the real problem, and the body becomes afflicted—they grow old too quickly and die prematurely.
We must create order in our lives; each of us must bear this responsibility. Consider every time – consuming or money – consuming thing in your life. Remember that you or another individual has invested life – hours into making the money you are spending. Are your investments worthwhile investments? Are they worth the price you pay and the time you give to them? You cannot cheat on balance. You will either balance your life or you will suffer from the imbalance.
We are living in an age of imbalance. Parents create imbalances in the home that are nonproductive of Life-vibrations. In desperation, the children create misery for themselves, for their parents, and for society in their search for Life – giving Spirit vibrations. Their life-starved spirits send them searching for soul food. But they have no idea where to look or what they are hungering for; they have been sent out into the world empty.
Children that are deprived of soul food …. while growing up often wind up in rebellion against their parents and society, and many of them in their confusion and resentment turn to liquor, drugs, and/or perversion. Too many Christians send an unspoken message to their children that soul food is only for the adult world. This is so sad because children need to learn early in life how to replenish their spirit’s supply.
Excessive desires are foreign to the individual who understands his spirit relationship to his Body and to the energy that sustains his Body, which is expressed to us by the word “love.” Divine Love (unadulterated Spirit-love) is the only energy that supports and sustains the Body properly.
Nonessentials come through many avenues. For example, in families with low-income, material excesses, such as expensive cars, demands higher taxes, higher insurance, higher monthly payments, and upkeep, which can easily create a stressful imbalance. We must have transportation, but choosing a mode of transportation that is not compatible with our budget can add unnecessary stress and worry. If the payments are out of balance with our budget, our whole life can become chaotic and almost unbearable. It can sap our time by demanding stressful hours of laboring overtime.
Working overtime or trying to hold down two jobs will replace our prayer time, family time, and the time we need to rest and relax. It leaves us no time for community projects, social involvement, or an act of benevolence. When excessive desires create an imbalance in our lives, it often leads to confusion, infidelity, divorce, drug abuse, disease, or even suicide.
An excessive desire for elaborate housing can place the same stressful demand on our bodies. When we cannot stretch the dollar to cover our excess spending, the first things that are sacrificed is our church support, alms deeds, and family time, which are all essential to balance.
Any desire that saps the time we have to rejuvenate our temple is categorized as excess. This can include our fascination for social events, for entertaining those people, especially children, excessive desire to be entertained, slothfulness, excess travel, excessive appetite, excessive drinking, reading, computer, computer games, and especially television, and sports.
A word of warning, you may spend only thirty minutes on world news, which seems insignificant, but if in that half hour, you have received information that troubles your mind with negative vibrations for the rest of the day; you have robbed your spirit of its positive energy. This same stress … that can be produced through a negative telephone conversation, a movie that is geared to touch your emotions, or a visit from a negative friend. Learn how to detect the negative inputs and work on methods of coping with them, or if possible, avoid them altogether.
Another pit we can fall into is trying to help a rebellious and confused person who drags us down into their confusion. If we cannot maintain our integrity and keep our peace, we will be sapped by our benevolent endeavor and our work will be fruitless.
If we cannot maintain a balance in our own life, we need to back off and remove the clutter so that we may become fruitful in our labors. Stressful labor does not produce a work of faith. Positive faith produces sufficient energy to protect us against the stress of a Spirit initiated project.
Anything that is not of faith is sin even though we sacrifice greatly in our effort to do flesh works. If we feel we are doing what the Lord wants us to do, we will be at peace. When we began to be uptight and start to fret, our flesh has taken over and we have lost touch with our Spiritual Guide or we have become rebellious—we are no longer working by faith.
Each person is unique; therefore, do not assume your balance is the perfect pattern for the lives of others. And do not attempt to fit your life pattern into the mold of another individual; though their order of balance may work well for them, it could be chaotic for you.
Some folks replenish their spiritual strength by a continuous communication with the Lord on the job; others may require a quite place to communicate. It does not matter how we keep the balance as long as we – do – not create a stressful atmosphere that deprives others and ourselves of precious Life-energy.
If you have never been aware of your spirit’s need for a strong energy flow, you will surly be pleasantly surprised when you bring your spiritual needs into balance.
When we deprive our spirit of its food supply, we will immediately become aware of the void in our lives. We may become restless, distressed, and sometimes overwhelmed with anxiety and worry.
We must learn to connect our inability to cope with life’s problems with our spirit’s lack of fuel, and then do something about it before our spirit escapes by going into hibernation.
Preview YouTube video Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend
