Another birthday came and went. With my scattered brain tendencies, whenever someone asks me when my birthday is I always tell them, “How good are you at math?” They are always thrown off because of my question. But eventually I take them through these steps:
Then I conclude with the punch line – “Since God wanted me to be balanced in my life, He brought me into this world in the middle of the whole year.” After some looks of annoyance and consternation by people, I smile and tell them that this process will help them to remember my birthday 🙂
Whenever my birthday comes around, I am always reminded about a life of balance. This birthday, I had to seriously ask myself – “Is my life balanced?” With some shame and discouragement, I concluded that recently my life has been lopsided. There are some important things and people in my life that I have not been faithful to in my stewardship. It seems as if when a person gets older, it should be easier to balance things but in my experience, it has been contrary to that notion.
Today, the image of a plant came to my mind and I thought about the words of Jesus when he said, “’Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing’” (John 15:4-5). A balanced life starts with “remaining” in Christ. It is so hard to just “remain,” especially if a person is a Type A personality. But when a person remains in Christ, it displays faith, trust and surrender.
Maybe the 15th day of the 6th month of every year is to challenge me about remaining in Christ and putting Him in the center of it all. This is my birthday prayer.