• Editor’s note: “Spiritual leaders answer” is a weekly column inviting Kaua‘i’s religious and spiritual leaders to share their doctrine’s perspective on a suggested subject. Every Friday, a topic is printed, inviting a response. Due to space limitations, submissions are
• Editor’s note: “Spiritual leaders answer” is a weekly column inviting Kaua‘i’s religious and spiritual leaders to share their doctrine’s perspective on a suggested subject. Every Friday, a topic is printed, inviting a response. Due to space limitations, submissions are edited. Thoughts or suggestions for future topics are always welcome. Next week the topic of Balance will be continued due to the generous amount of submissions. The topic at the end of the column is for the following week.
Pastor Wayne Patton
Anahola Baptist Church
Balance is tough to achieve. Four critical “weights” are needed to achieve a biblically balanced life. The first is humility. Humility primarily means that we are sensitive to the needs of others and cautious about wanting our way all the time. It also means that we should change our conversational techniques from telling others about us to asking others about themselves. The famous Chinese Christian leader, Watchman Nee, once said, “My destiny is to be either raptured or martyred. I refuse to be admired.” Humility means we deflect attention from ourselves while guarding the self-image of those around us.
A penchant for honesty is the second critical “weight.” King Solomon tells us that “honest scales and balances are from the Lord,” (Proverbs 16:11). He also instructs us that “better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one perverse in his ways though he be rich.”
A third “weight” of a balanced person is generosity. Generosity is an act of worship (Proverbs 3:9-10). Honoring God with our money and with the first part of all our income is not limited to giving our tithes and offerings. It is a matter of becoming generous in every way. Generosity should be a trait woven into every part of our lives.
Finally, we must balance our lives with a sense of loyalty. We must stick with our friends (Proverbs 27:10). How important it is to be a loyal friend and to be loyal to our father’s friend as well.
When we are humble, honest, generous and loyal — well-balanced — we are pleasing to the Lord. And when we are pleasing to the Lord, we make even our enemies be at peace with us.
Kahu James Fung
Lihu‘e Christian Church
Faith has a way of throwing us off balance. We are persuaded by scripture to dare to be unbalanced in the way we lean upon God in trust as opposed to firmly standing securely on our own two feet and depending on the our so-called wisdom.
There is excitement and adventure in the giving up a balanced approach to life and letting ourselves fall “head over heels” in love, being beside ourselves with joy, letting ourselves relinquish the need for control and deciding to just “hang loose” with however God chooses to direct us.
There is the story of a Christian missionary who was having trouble finding the word for “trust” in the native language of the people he was working with. He invited one of the locals, a heavy set man, into his hut to sit down for a chat. As the man let himself down into the chair he said to himself, “that’s it” — the word for trust was the word that describes how one allows his full weight to fall back into a chair — even though you don’t know if the chair will hold your weight, but because you believe in the person who invited you to sit.
If we never allowed ourselves to be off balance, to trust, to walk by faith, to fall in love, to take a chance, to dare to do something we’ve never done before, how dull life would be. You see, life is more a mystery to be enjoyed when we let ourselves step out into the unknown rather than a problem to be solved or a formula to perfect.
Topic for two
weeks from today
• Will you speak to us on patience?
•Spiritual leaders are invited to e-mail responses of three to five paragraphs to pwoolway@kauaipubco.com.
•Deadline each week is 5 p.m. Tuesday.