Fine Lines: Staying Active or Overly Busy

Today’s coaching lesson takes a look at the balance beam of  staying active or overly busy.

Ah, the tightrope of walking those Fine Lines…

There are as many variations of this set of our soul as there are people.

“What you talkin’ ’bout soul?” “It’s a body thing!”

Well, guess who’s behind the wheel of that body. For a refresher of the brain and soul connection that influences what we do or don’t do, you can read the first Fine Lines post in this series here.

For today’s pop quiz, how would you rate your ‘default’ when it comes to staying active or overly busy?

□ I try / succeed / want to live a ‘staying active’ lifestyle. (We know that would be the perfect answer)

□ For the love of Pete, there is no ‘overly’ in busy. I’m a hamster in disguise!

□ ♪ ‘Cause I’m a putterer, yeah a putterer, I putter ’round, around, around ♪

□ Aiyiyi! My toes are cramping again trying to walk this tightrope!

□ I need a rock to crawl under. If anyone asks me to do one more thing … grrr

□ I don’t want to leave room for thinking thoughts I don’t want to think. I do busy instead.

□ I’m tired. If ‘overly busy’ is the jail cell, then ‘staying active’ is a crime I don’t want to commit. So I sit.

□ The / my / your world will stop spinning if I rotate any slower. Guilt is my gas.

□ I’m learning I can’t be all things to all people, including myself. So I’m asking …

What’s most important?

 That, my friend, is really the Question of the Day. And it comes back to that balance beam thinking.

I like this photo because it reminds me of the old saying, “you can’t see the forest for the trees.”

Sometimes Bucky Beaver kicks in and we become a veritable logger – sawing, stripping, and stacking away. We force ourselves to do and before long, our soul/brain has us convinced that to slow down, take a break, or step aside for a breather is to commit the unpardonable sin. Or at least run out of wood.

At other times, the thought of picking up the chainsaw is enough to keep us rocking faster on the porch. Expending energy to stay active – in a healthy lifestyle (spirit, soul and body) kind of way doesn’t sit well.

The temptation to tilt one way or the other slowly becomes a typical way of life, habitually formed.

Funny how we can form a habit without giving it much thought, not realizing it’s become a habit. Then when we know we should form a new habit, any one of our ‘default’ options above temptingly kicks in!

So what’s a Bucky Beaver and a porch sitter wannabe to do? The Apostle Peter has some wisdom for us:

make every effort to add to your faith goodness;
and to goodness, knowledge;
and to knowledge, self-control;
and to self-control, perseverance;
and to perseverance, godliness;
and to godliness, brotherly kindness;
and to brotherly kindness, love.

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure,
they will keep you from being ineffective (a porch sitter wannabe)
and unproductive (an overly busy Bucky Beaver)
in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
II Peter 1:5-8 (NIV84) – (comments added)

Reading Peter’s list gives every indication there are things in which we are to be actively engaged.

Before we consider it only a list of spiritual application, read it again. There is embedded within this scripture a ‘staying active’ application of not only internal purposes but external evidences as well.

Jesus stayed active – and if the crowds had their way, He could have been driven to being ‘overly busy’. But, He chose to do only what His Father did and learned how to both work well and rest well. Frankly, in His own life, Jesus matured and grew in wisdom by ‘making every effort to add to…’ Peter’s list.

Who do we think taught Peter what He himself learned as a man in human flesh with all its temptations?

So back to our Question of the Day: What’s most important?

If you’d like to step aside for a bit of a breather to explore that for yourself, I have a balance beam we can perch on for a spell. I welcome your contact.

~ Nancy

Free Photo courtesy of Unsplash / Ales Krivec