Balancing Blessings

 

Soggy.

Everything in the garden is saturated. Some berries have swelled with the abundant rain. They’ve even turned a ripe colour.

What’s missing is the sweetness the sun brings out. There’s been no balance in our blessings this summer. We’ve had all the water, while other places have had all the sun. I imagine in the blisteringly hot places, fruit (unless irrigated) is shrivelled and wasted, maybe bitter or inedible. Here it is swollen but soggy and often tasteless.

I’ve picked some of the soggy rasps and black currants this morning. If they lack the sun-kissed sweetness I crave, I can always bake with them, or make jam.

Balancing my blessings. I can either struggle to do it myself, or endeavour to remain in Jesus and allow him to achieve the right balance. Doing it myself reminds me of the option we are given when entering a website, where we can either accept the cookies, reject the cookies, or manage them ourselves. I wouldn’t know how to manage cookies, just like I don’t know how to manage blessings.

It doesn’t sound very spiritual to think of managing blessings. Why wouldn’t I want to just rejoice in them all? Of course I do want to rejoice in all my blessings, but I am thinking of the way believers can become overly attentive to the authority of the written word of God, discounting the activity of the Spirit and the relationship we can have with Jesus. Others can focus on the Spirit and dismiss the importance of Scripture.

Whichever tendency I lean towards, I am reminding myself today that the only way to achieve the right balance is through an active relationship with Jesus. He will temper my emotional exuberance and guide me into the right balance of Spirit and Scripture.

Not a new lesson for me, but today, with Jesus’ help, I am going to focus on practicing his presence. I don’t want to be desiccated and dried out, not do I want to be soggy and tasteless.