The Chronicles of Sarnia: Finding the Balance, Living through the Heart

A conversation from Eat Pray Love got me thinking. Some thoughts that have already been percolating but some new perspective has also been gained. Maybe these are obvious thoughts that you have already encountered, but here are my tid bits anyway; read on if you please.

Excerpt from Eat, Pray, Love
Conversation with Liz and a ninth-generation Balinese medicine man
Liz - “I want to have a lasting experience of God,” I told him. “Sometimes I feel like I understand the divinity of this world, but then I lose it because I get distracted by my petty desires and fears. I want to be with God all the time. But I don't want to be a monk, or totally give up worldly pleasure. I guess what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God.” Ketut said he could answer my question with a picture. He showed me a sketch he'd drawn once during meditation. It was an androgynous human figure, standing up, hands clasped in prayer. But this figure had four legs, and no head. Where the head should have been, there was only a wild foliage of ferns and flowers. There was a small, smiling face drawn over the heart.
“To find the balance you want,” Ketut spoke through his translator, “this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have four legs, instead of two. That way, you can stay in this world. But you most stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart instead, that way, you will know God.”

On this cold, rainy sunday afternoon, I came across this encounter which resonated with my life and desire to live whole heartedly with the Lord. I've found it to be a difficult journey, as I'm sure others have as well, to live in this world but not be 'of' it. How does one find the balance and then proceed to live it out?

I am an anxious person and often find myself worried and stressed when I really don't need to be. I also enjoy the many conveniences offered to me by today's society yet they can so easily distract me from my life with God. Whether it be spending more time on facebook or watching movies rather than with God in daily devotion and prayer. Whether it be searching for or relying on other things/people to calm my anxieties when I should first turn to the Lord.

I want to be with the Lord all the time just as Liz does and I so appreciated this wise man's depiction of what the balance between us, the world we live in and God can look like. I absolutely love his idea of being so grounded it's as if one is on all fours to obtain a stronger stance, in such a way that we can have our focus on God and remain well in this world. There is more to life than what we find here on earth, but while we here, let us view it through our hearts rather than our minds. It is in our hearts that we are connected to God; it's through our souls that we can view the world through the lens of our Father and creator.

Back in the spring I had a discernment prayer time with a circle of friends and supporters. From that the Lord made it clear that my vocation of this time in life is to work on my relationship with Him and to really get to know Him better (it sounds kinda cliche but...it is what it is). At the time, I thought that was the 6 weeks or so preceding that prayer meeting. However, as the weeks and months have passed, I've noticed this vocation extend into each little step I've step I've taken since graduation. Now here I am, where it is most evident and definitely a focal point of my life right now. I hope I can make wise choices over the next while to pursue this vocation well. My hope is that I will find balance and grow in a way that enables me to live life through my heart; to see the world through my father's eyes and come to a better understanding of it and of Him. This way of life will most likely lead to a lasting encounter with God and yet I also recognize ti will probably take a lifetime to even start mastering such a way. Anxieties and fears, distractions and weak choices have a way of swaying one from good intentions and a trusting heart. Following the desire, it's about choices, priorities and discipline – like any relationship, it doesn't just happen rather it takes effort but is totally worth it.

Jeremiah 17:5-8

5This is what the Lord says:

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,

who draws strength from mere flesh


and whose heart turns away from the Lord.

6That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;

they will not see prosperity when it comes.


They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,

in a salt land where no one lives.

7“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,


whose confidence is in him.

8They will be like a tree planted by the water


that sends out its roots by the stream.


It does not fear when heat comes;

its leaves are always green.


It has no worries in a year of drought

and never fails to bear fruit.”