God, these times with You, they are like parentheses around my day, only what happens in between isn’t parenthetical, it’s integral. It’s the whole point! But You anchor me, before the day starts and near its closing. These times with You are like breathing for me, I take in, I release; I release, I take in. I can’t do one without the other. I can’t say Please without Thank You. Is this why people talk about Yin/Yang, about balance?
There are many ways to think about balance. You often think about balancing work and rest, or time alone with time spent with others. You think of a seesaw and wonder where the center point is, trying to measure your hours to find the middle. But what if one side is more heavily weighted than the other? What is the balance point then? I have told you before, one reason I gave Sabbath to humans was that rest was needed to balance work. You have taken that concept to mean, a lot of work, a little rest. Soon, little became even smaller, and then shrunk to almost none. This is not at all what I meant!
What centers you? What energizes you? What pulls and tugs at you in a way that weighs you down? What frees you so that you feel weightless and timeless? You have to answer all these questions for yourself, and your answers will change depending on circumstances. There is no single right answer, not for humanity, not even for you and your life. The answer is always moving just as the balance point is always moving, depending on the load of the day and the need of the moment. There are times when six days of rest are needed to counterbalance the weight of one day of work, of effort! This is why it is so important that you stay closely connected. You keep trying to fit into a cookie cutter life, a set schedule, a “now-I-have-it-figured-out” routine. None of those will work. For one, you would quickly get bored. Humanity in general, and you in particular are not cut out for a cookie cutter life. Same/same doesn’t serve your best, or others’. Instead, growth and freshness, and surprises, and opportunities, and change, and challenge—all those words you love sometimes and loathe sometimes—they are what make life interesting and worth getting up every morning to enter.
Every day at the start of the day, I want you to ask yourself these questions:
What is my best hope for this day? Not “every day” in general, but this day? What would bring me joy, today? How can I show love today and inspire peace, today?
Then at the end of each day, I want you to ask, what is my greatest gratitude today? What was the day’s best gift? If I had one do-over, what would that be, and why?
Then I want you to receive and release – receive the day, and release the day. Receive the next day, and release all prior days. Receive whatever you need from Me, in each today – strength, or hope, or grace, or wisdom, or guidance, or peace, or patience, or perseverance, or love, or joy, or peace, or faith…and then release to Me whatever you need to let go of or celebrate at the end of every day, whether fatigue or joy of accomplishment, whether regret or satisfaction, whether sorrow or deep gladness. Receive from Me and release to Me, like your breathing. And for each point of release, receive again. For regret receive grace and wisdom; for fatigue receive rest and replenishment, for sorrow receive comfort and mercy. For joy of accomplishment hear My echo of Well Done! For satisfaction or deep gladness, receive the capacity to hold even more. For the deep desire within you to serve, to be of use, receive direction to carry into each tomorrow.
This is the secret to balance. Receive and release; release and receive. If you can learn to feel your balance point and find it in the moment, you will be much less tired overall, and you will both enter and end each day more in tune with yourself, with Me, and with all that your life demands of you.