Low on the Go!

balance.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how i have the tendency to section off the things i'm supposed to do into groups. Prayer is one group. Evangelism is another group. Discipleship and fellowship are another group. And because i section them off in my mind, as though they are separate entities, i live as though they are separate.

That's why, when i'm burned out or tired or grumpy, evangelism is the first thing to go. Then discipleship. i'll keep on praying and trying to focus on my personal walk with God, but inevitably, i'll get more and more frustrated towards many areas of my life, including evangelism and discipleship.

Maybe this is because these things weren't meant to be separate entities. Why do we pray? It's not just for our own personal revival. It's so that God's kingdom may come. We pray so that we can do evangelism. And when we do evangelism, and see the state of the world, we can't help but pray more. Tautological, isn't it? Why do we make disciples? To see all nations come to know God. So discipleship and evangelism are also intricately woven. You can't have disciples if you don't do evangelism. And when we're committed to both discipleship and evangelism, it follows that prayer is so essential, because the more you do both, the more you realize how much you can't succeed at both.

I'm not even sure if i'm making sense or not, but here's my point. When there's an imbalance in one of these three areas, it doesn't just affect our life in that one particular area, but in all three areas.

When we let evangelism drop to the wayside, our prayers become weak and self-centered. They start to lack fervency, because there is little purpose to be fervent and desperate for. Our eyes turn to ourselves and our needs, instead of God and God's heart for the lost. When we let discipleship drop, our evangelistic efforts and fruit from those efforts are siphoned into..nowhere. When we let prayer drop, we miss out on seeing the world as God sees the world, but also seeing God's purpose and hand in our efforts. Evangelism and discipleship just become commands that we need to follow out of obedience, and this soon turns into resentment towards others, and towards God.

Again, despite my inability to clearly communicate what i am thinking, i think this is why many students go through burnout or a bitterness towards the company in their last year. (As a caveat, i am sure our organization needs to be constantly tweaking our methodology so that we can be helping students fight against burnout and bitterness and preventing this from happening. So, in saying this, i am not neglecting the organization's fault in being conducive towards this bitterness).

But i think that a lot of our student leaders go through burnout and bitterness because one of these three areas, or more are imbalanced. As an example, i see a lot of student leaders (including myself, when i was a student), doing a lot of evangelism and discipleship, but little prayer. Soon, as a result, evangelism and discipleship become huge chores that they have to do, instead of stemming from a supple and humble heart that comes only through the dependency of prayer. Come fourth year, students are burned out and stressed out, and that only yields bitterness. Without the humility and softening of hearts that genuine prayer brings, there is little way to taper this bitterness.
On the flip side, what often happens then, is that students drop everything they have been given ownership over, and decide that they need to just focus on themselves and prayer. Prayer skyrockets, and slowly a healing process begins. But without evangelism and discipleship in the picture, their prayers become self-centered and focused on their own personal growth. What is often missed, however, is that in order for personal growth to happen, taking steps of faith in evangelism and discipleship needs to happen. The prayers just lead to more and more self-pity and "woe-is-me" mentality.

This was me, in my last year of university. Because i had the view that these three things were separate and distinct areas, instead of all being integral in my life (think venn diagram), i allowed myself to rob myself of what could have been a great last year of university.

And it's not just a university thing either. i see the cycle of imbalance in my own life. hmm balance. it's a hard thing...