The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. Psalm 104:19
Planet Earth, with its diameter of 7,926 miles, rests basically on nothing. Yet the earth races along its elliptical orbit around the sun in exactly three‑hundred sixty‑five and a quarter days. Isaac Newton defined this force in his “law of gravitation” when he said the mass of an object is directly proportional to its magnetic attraction. The whole universe is held in harmony by a vast, intricate system of balances and tensions.
Balance is unquestionably the key to the universe—an intricate system of forces which counteract other forces, and the result is harmony. The seasons create a balanced climate that gives us enough change in the environment to give us sound emotional health. Where there’s a lack of balance, there is an extreme of one kind or another—it gets monotonous. Changes in our seasons serve as a gigantic pendulum that swings from winter to summer solstice, bringing the cycle of spring, summer, fall and winter. Psychologists tell us that where there’s a climate that never changes, there’s boredom and psychological unrest.
God knew that humankind, His creation, needed an environment with balance, which included seasonal changes. But balance is just as important in your life personally as nature, for balance is the mainspring of a happy, normal life. When you cease to maintain balance, you get lopsided, and the rest of the world seems out of sync or wrong to you. But to be perfectly realistic, balance is not easy. It’s far easier to be an extremist in an area of life than use discretion and to keep balance. This is where fads or trends develop. To conform, we reject the traditional and are quickly willing to accept the new extreme as exciting, not understanding that being different is not always being better.
C.S. Lewis used to say that errors come into the world in pairs—pairs of opposites. Most of us spend a great deal of time thinking about which extreme is worse; then, we become so firmly convinced one extreme is bad, we unconsciously are drawn to the opposite extreme. Have you ever noticed that very few people drive the speed limit? Either they’re ten miles or kilometers an hour over it or fifteen under it. So, how do you keep a sense of balance in a world of extremes?
Notice the very principle of balance presupposes a point of reference between the two extremes—kind of a mid‑position that gives an absolute that produces some rhyme and reason. Webster says balance is, “to bring an equipoise or state of equilibrium.” It brings the extremes into play with each other. Now, a person who has placed his faith in God has a third dimension in his life, one that becomes triangular, and this allows you to look at life through a different perspective. The Bible says if a person is in Christ, you become a new person. A pendulum swings back and forth from a fixed point of reference, but without that point of fixation or reference, it would have no usefulness or purpose at all. Anyone who maintains balance doesn’t gravitate from one extreme to another as a pendulum swings back and forth. There is a fixed point of reference. God can give you that balance, that fixed point of reference.
May I hasten say that in our drug and tranquilizer age, a lot of people are frustrated, moving from one extreme to the other. Friend, I’ll say it again. God alone gives you balance.
Resource Reading: Job 38:1-41
