A. IS MAINTAINING BALANCE A PART OF CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY?

What makes up your life?

Complete Study Two Worksheet Section #1 now.

An important question : is the quest for balance biblical ?

Jesus said things like:

‘Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me … anyone
who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life
will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’ [Matthew 10:37ff]

What did he mean? Did he mean …

That we should neglect our family responsibilities because we are involved in the work
of Christ’s kingdom?
That we should embrace a life of physical hardship or financial poverty because we are
too busy in church activities to earn our living and support our families?
That we should do the work of the kingdom flat out and never take a break?
That he was giving us a license for laziness or an excuse for economic incompetence or a
reason for relationship disasters?

The need to live a ‘balanced life’ is often impressed upon us by human wisdom. But is there
anything in God’s wisdom that would affirm or define the relevance of this for those who
belong to Jesus Christ and wish to be involved in the work of his kingdom?

Complete Study Two Worksheet section #2 now. [Note that this involves extensive
research of the Bible, and will take quite a long time.]

From these biblical texts it would seem that to live a balanced life should be one of our goals;
it will help us to perform and to achieve to our maximum potential. But it is also clear that the
quest for balance should not be the Christian’s overriding commitment. Our commitment is
first and foremost a commitment to the Lord and his kingdom. Balance is a tool that we can
use to help us in this commitment.

B. MANAGING YOURSELF
A big factor in achieving a balanced life in which we maximize our God-given potential and
our ability to glorify and serve him is about managing ourselves. It is not primarily about
managing time.

What does managing ourself look like? It is very much to do with how we think: with what
goes on in our mind.

This is why God tells us things like:

 ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind’ [Romans 12:2].

‘So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles
do, in the futility of their thinking’ [Ephesians 4:17].

‘Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus …’ [Philippians 2:5].

Managing yourself requires you to:

View your life in terms of the Biblical Priorities discussed in the Setting Biblical
Foundations studies.
View your life in terms of the Biblical Principles discussed in the Setting Biblical
Foundations studies.

View yourself as God views you – always, ever and only in Christ. [Review the first
three studies in Knowing Yourself - http://www.godswordforyou.com/living-for-
jesus/knowing-yourself.html ].

[All of the above challenge you to stop looking at your life and yourself in terms of
human values and opinions. They will help to protect you against the negative self-
perceptions and godless expectations that come from the world and fill our minds
with wrong thinking.]

View God as he really is: the God who is in sovereign control of all things, and the God
who loves you so much that he gave his only Son to save you.

View your salvation as the Bible presents it: secure and certain because it depends on
Jesus Christ alone, and not on your own abilities, success or worthiness.

[These two will give you great confidence in your relationship with God.]

With all of these in mind managing yourself well will mean:

That you approach each day and each task utterly confident in God’s love.
That you approach each task, no matter how small, as a task done for God and his glory.
That you will use each moment as a gift from God.
That you will treat each person as a person created by God and precious to God.
That you will give your failures and sins no power to erode or diminish your confidence
in God and your peace with God.

C. TAKING CONTROL OF YOUR TIME

‘Life is short. We make it shorter by wasting time.’

Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People recommends ‘putting first things
first’. He bases time management on the concept of four ‘quadrants’ into which all of the
demands on our time can be classified.
Quadrant I: things that are urgent and important –
These include things like crises, meeting deadlines, pressing problems. [These have to be
done.]

Quadrant II: things that are important but not urgent –

Things like building relationships, planning [These are often wrongly displaced/delayed by
the urgent.]

Quadrant III: things that are urgent but not important –

These include interruptions, some mail, phone calls and visitors, writing some reports, some
meetings.

Quadrant IV: things that are not urgent and not important –
Things like junk mail and emails, some mail and phone calls, some entertainment, time
wasters.

The important things contribute to our mission and goals. These should receive most of our
attention and time. Things that are urgent, but not important, should be dealt with promptly
and graciously. Things that are neither urgent nor important need to be weeded out of our
lives as much as possible.

Complete Section #3 What is Important? in the Study Two Worksheet now.

Getting the things in Quadrant IV out of your life, or refusing to spend time on them, will
give you more time for the important things. To do this, and to minimize the time you spend
on Quadrant III, you will need to set firm boundaries. These boundaries might include:

Putting specific filters on you email accounts.

Deleting, without opening, obvious time-wasting emails.
Putting a ‘No junk mail’ on your letter box.
Listing your phone number with the Do Not Call registry.
Switching your phone to the answering service during time committed to family etc.
Putting specific filters on your computer to lock you out of sites where you waste time.
Go to the shops only when you need to purchase specific items.
Dealing with emails, letters, etc promptly. [Handling each only once.]

Complete Section #4A-C Life Balance Study in the Study Two Worksheet now.

Complete Section #5 Time Management Study in the Study two Worksheet now.

C.1 Where is your time going?

Your Life Balance Study and Time Management Study have probably revealed that a sizeable
chunk of your time is used up with things that do not really contribute to your goals, mission
statement or priorities and principles.

Commonly, the biggest underlying causes of wasted time are:

 Our own indecision.
Our own lack of direction, motivation or commitment.
Our own laziness.

Knowing who we are, having goals, and being committed to a purpose and a Person bigger
than ourselves helps us to become more decisive, more directed, more motivated and more
committed – more intentional in our use of time. [Laziness is simply a sin we have to repent
of.]

Even so, temptations entice us to use up our time on unessentials. Here the main
contemporary culprits are often technology related:

Computers, including ‘computer games’.

The internet, including gaming, Facebook and other social forums.
Phones, including texting.
Television.

C.2 Timetables and schedules can help

Some people find that either detailed timetables or general weekly schedules are an effective
tool in time management. What kind of timetable or schedule is best for you depends largely
on the kind of person you are and the kind of activities that occupy most of your time.

Detailed timetables:
A detailed timetable will allocate every hour of every day to specific activities. It will include
the time you get up in the morning, the time you go to bed, and all things in between, for each
day of the week. It will include:

Sleep
Prayer and Bible study
Time spent with family
Church and ministry
Time spent with friends
Employment
Self-care – hygiene, exercise
Self-development – education, skill-development
Care of your home and yard
Relaxation
Margin – empty spaces scheduled in to minimize time stress.

This detailed time-tabling works very well for some people. It does, however, require a
number of warnings

Your timetable should never be allowed to over-ride your relationships with family and
friends. The people in your life are more important than your timetable, and there will be
times when you need to forget the timetable and respond to the needs of your family and
friends. People first, plans second.
 Your timetable is not your master; you are not its slave. The timetable is your servant, a
tool by which you are seeking to have control over your time so that you can better serve
and honour the real Master.

Your timetable is neither your judge nor your accuser. Never allow it to usurp that role. It
is better to not have a timetable than to have a timetable that is constantly accusing you
and generating guilt.

Scheduling daily and weekly goals:

An alternative to detailed timetabling is scheduling goals for either your days or your weeks.
These time-focused goals will relate to your mission statement and your short and long-term
goals previously identified. They will also assist you to live by your biblical priorities and
principles.

Examples of time-focused goals:

To spend x time each day in prayer and Bible study.

To spend x time each day with your spouse.
To spend x time each day with your children.
To go to bed by x time every night.

To spend x time in physical activity each week.

To maintain contact with specific friends each week.
To intentionally develop your relationship with family members each week.
To allow x time for relaxation each week.
To spend x time on your house and yard each week.
To spend x time in Christian ministry activities each week.

To have x job done by ….

Some of these daily and weekly goals will be the ‘norm’ or the ‘given’ – the way you live
your life. Others need to be set for each day and each week.

At the end of each week, decide what you want to achieve during the next week and not
that in your diary.

Before you go to bed each night, plan what you intend to do tomorrow, and jot that down
if necessary.

For things that take longer than a day and a week, set yourself deadlines – the ideal time
by which you should have completed a task, or built a relationship.

This time-focused scheduling of goals has more flexibility than detailed timetables. But even
this planning can become a tyrant and a judge if you allow it to.
UNDERSTANDING HOW YOU FEEL

© Rosemary Bardsley 2009, 2014

There are times and situations in which we feel ‘out of sync’. Uncomfortable. Like something
is ‘wrong’. We feel disempowered - like we cannot function properly, like we cannot do what
we know we are actually able to do. Other people seem to be coping okay, enjoying
themselves, feeling fulfilled, but not us.

This may be because of unrealistic perceptions and expectations, which will be discussed in a
later study.

It may also be because some of our basic personal psychological and emotional needs are not
being met.

A. BOUNDARIES OF PERSONAL NEEDS

As with any self ‘analysis’ there is a degree of subjectivity and the danger of locking oneself
into a box. We should therefore view knowing our personal emotional needs not as something
that binds us into a set of predetermined reactions but as one among many ‘tools’ by which
we can understand ourselves and others - why we and they act the way we do, why we feel
better in some situations than in others, and why we should not expect everyone to enjoy or
feel comfortable in the same situations as we ourselves do.

An awareness of personal needs helps us to live with and act towards others with compassion,
acceptance and understanding. It also helps us to understand why we feel better with some
people than with others … they could possibly be the people who knowingly or unknowingly
support us in our dominant areas of personal needs.

At another level we should not use our awareness of our own personal needs as an excuse to
disobey God’s clear commands. Rather they should make us aware of our fragile and
vulnerable points where we are more likely to fail or to avoid involvement, and to seek the
Lord’s help to strengthen us in these areas.

At a deeper level, as we grow in our knowledge of Christ and his salvation, we realize more
and more that our deepest ‘needs’ are met in him – he is the ‘bread of life’ and the ‘living
water’. To follow him is to be eternally and completely satisfied, even now as we live
moment by moment, irrespective of whether or not our ‘personality needs’ are being met.

B. WHAT ARE THESE ‘PERSONAL NEEDS’?

These ‘needs’ are what we need to feel okay, to feel good, and to function to our maximum
potential. Just as we have physiological needs - food, air, water, clothing, shelter – which
have to be met for us to feel good physically and function well, we also have emotional or
psychological needs, which have to be met to make us feel good as a person and to function
at our max. These include:
  An awareness of security, freedom from perceived threat or danger
 Acceptance, love, belonging, social interaction

 Achievement, esteem, status.

 Intellectual or aesthetic needs – knowledge, beauty, etc

 Fulfilment needs, self-recognition needs

We do not feel or express all of our needs to the same degree; in other words, we differ from
one another in the areas in which our ‘needs’ are highest and lowest. This section will focus
on four common areas of where people have ‘strong’ or ‘high’ emotional or psychological
needs which must be met for them to function well. If we have high needs in a certain area it
will be difficult for us to understand someone who has low needs in that area. Conversely if
we have ‘low’ needs in a given area we will find it difficult to understand why some people
can’t function well unless those needs are met.

C. THE FOUR MAIN NEEDS

C.1 High recognition needs

Some of us function best when our ‘recognition’ needs are met:

 We need approval
 We tend to need to look good or make a good impression

 We might not work particularly well in groups, but do enjoy having a key role in a group

 We tend to want to dominate and control

 We seem to need regular encouragement to keep us interested

 We generally work better on short term projects as they get immediate recognition

 We do well in ‘up-front’ roles

 We like/need to be the centre of attention

 We tend to choose interests where we can be seen to be succeeding

 We are often the life of the party

 We sometimes come across as ungracious

 We tend to demand attention

 We find it difficult to handle criticism

 We need to be flattered

Obviously some of these ‘needs’ are expressions of our sinful natures and our alienation
from God; others are part of our God-given personality and natural talents. Note also, that the
‘high recognition needs’ person will tend to feel ‘flat’ or unmotivated if approval and
recognition are absent. On the other hand, a person with low recognition needs will feel
grossly uncomfortable in the contexts and situations referred to above.

Complete Section #1 in the Study Six Worksheet now.

C.2 High social needs

Some of us function best when our social needs are met:

 We are outgoing, social and friendly

 We need to have people around us

 We tend to feel stressed if we’re alone

 We tend to accept other people and their ideas

 We enjoy working on group projects

 We don’t particularly like directing others

 We have good interpersonal skills

 We are usually well-liked

 We don’t perform well in isolation

 We enjoy or even need an active social life

 We enjoy entertaining and being entertained

 We like going out

People with high social needs find it difficult to understand how a person with low social
needs can be happy just staying at home doing quiet things like reading, gardening or craft, or
working alone on a project. They sometimes act as though there is something wrong or
immature with such people, and will try to badger them into joining in social activities.
Conversely a person with low social needs is likely to opt out of group activities and miss out
on both Christian fellowship and involvement in Christian service, especially where group
interaction is demanded.

Again, there are characteristics of high social needs people that are expressions of the sinful
nature, and there are aspects that are part of their God-given personality and talents.

Complete Section #2 in the Study Six Worksheet now.

C.3 High security needs

Some of us function best when our security needs are met:

 We tend to keep in the background

  We need to feel secure

 We like having other people around

 We tend to be loyal and dependable

 We are often quiet and unassuming

 We don’t like making instant decisions

 We are committed and diligent at work

 We can cope with heaps of work

 We don’t particularly like reporting

 We cope well with long term projects

 We like balance between social and private activities

 We value acceptance by others

 We are trustworthy, and faithful to our friends

 We are usually reliable and there when needed

Complete Section #3 in the Study Six Worksheet now.

C.4 High Achievement Needs

Some of us function best when our achievement needs are met:

 We tend to be individualistic, persevering and achievement oriented

 We are often forward thinking

 We are very competitive

 We have very high and strong standards of ourselves

 We tend to speak well and forcefully

 We seem to naturally take control, in fact we almost need to be in control

 We are creative and enthusiastic

 We like to work alone

 We would rather lead than be led

 We don’t think much of parties

 We tend to get straight into the job

 We feel quite uncomfortable and out-of-sync if a task/project is not working out

 We find it difficult to cope with failure or mistakes

  We are good at planning

 We don’t usually have good people skills

 We prefer to be with a few people like ourselves, not a crowd

 We tend to be totally committed to those we love

Complete Section #4 in the Study Six Worksheet now.

D. APPLICATION

An awareness of these personal needs helps us to understand ourselves and each other and to
anticipate and prevent some personal and inter-personal difficulties.

It warns us not to put ourselves down when we do not feel comfortable doing things that
others seem to do easily.

It helps us not to expect the same of everyone, and to work towards helping people in the
areas that are not naturally easy for them.

We will know not to expect everyone to like the same kinds of youth programs or social
activities.

We will know that when we seem to have different attitudes to a proposed event that
difference may stem from different personal needs.

We will also learn to adapt our own preferences so that the needs of others are also being
met.

We will allow people their private space, and hope that they will also in turn allow us
social interaction.

We will allow people to get involved in what we see as frightening activities, and we will
hope that they in turn will allow us room to be cautious.

In doing so we will fulfil the biblical commands to look after and bear with other people, and
to let their needs have preference over our own. We will also be wary of loading unrealistic
perceptions or expectations onto ourselves and others.

‘Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ’ [Galatians
6:2].

‘Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of
others’ [Philippians 2:4].

‘Bear with each other …’ [Colossians 3:13].