Balance and Fellowship

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Is your life out of balance? Are you spending more from your spiritual, emotional and physical account than you're putting in?

Another source of strength comes from fellowship with other believers and loving relationships with friends and family.

Acts 2:42 --They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

One of the great things about being a marketplace Christian is that it forces us daily into interaction with non-believers. But living and working with those who do not share our faith and our love of Jesus is without question a large drain on our inner resources. We need times of fellowship to give us strength; we need church every week; we need small support groups of Bible study and prayer.

I want to strongly encourage you to be involved in a small support group. You need a few people that you regularly interact with, where you can be open and honest, where you are accountable, and where you are totally accepted. People you can call in the middle of the night, if necessary, for prayer support. If you have one or two people like that in your life, it will pour enormous strength into you, spiritually, emotionally and mentally.

If you don't, cultivate such a support group. Start it yourself. I'm sure you can find one or two others who feel like you do and need your support, as you do theirs. It will strengthen you immensely.

We also need those personal relationships from which we gain strength. Some of you are married to people who truly strengthen you. Marriage was intended by God to be a source of strength.

We need close relationships with friends and family. You don't have to have a lot, but you need one or two. Do you have that person who really cares about the details of your life, to whom you can "spill your gut," where you can let your hair down, and be understood and accepted even when you don't have it all together? If not, I encourage you to pray for that relationship. And to be that kind of support to someone else.

Christian Working Woman Transcript