Balancing Life’s Demands

October 2007

“It is not what he has, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.” — Henri Frederic Amiel

Pastors and church leaders often talk of the difficulties associated with leading balanced and focused lives. I can identify with the problems of wearing too many hats, competing demands and living with unbalanced lives.

Conversations generally center on organizing, prioritizing, and self-discipline to use time wisely, but no matter how hard we try, we can’t create more time. So how do we balance the many roles of our lives?

Some start with an attempt to organize the use of time more effectively. We may even create an inventory of our life, work and ministry roles. This helps us to pursue the right things and justify saying no to those roles which detract from a focused life. Next comes prioritizing our roles. But how should we prioritize?

As Christians our commission to make disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 28: 19-20) is the filter for determining our priorities. Becoming or helping someone become a disciple requires close relationships and close relationships require an expenditure of time and a commitment to accountability.

To balance the demands of life we must keep “first things first” and encourage accountability in our lives. The Apostle Paul has something to say about this.

The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

In II Timothy 2:2, Paul illustrates an “accountability triad”. Paul had discipled and mentored Timothy and now he was now telling Timothy to do the same with other faithful followers of Jesus. Therefore Timothy was in an “accountability triad”, he had someone to follow and someone to lead. Paul went on to insist that Timothy place his followers in a position of leading others also, creating an ongoing chain of mentoring relationships.

Wow! It sure sounds like my simple life just became more complicated. Don’t dismay, Paul is sharing the secret to balancing life’s demands, namely, using the right filter to determine what we do and allowing a faithful believer to speak accountability into our lives.

Christine, my wife, sweetheart, and first accountability partner has on occasion brought me to balance by simply asking, “Are you a human doing or human being today?”

Have you allowed someone to hold you accountable? Are you engaged in an “ongoing chain of mentoring relationships”? If not, why not? If not now, when? The first step to balancing life’s demands can only be taken by you.

To learn more about resources available to assist you to balance life’s demands contact me at or call me at 785-228-6800.

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