My word for 2024: Equipoise.
Last year was an unanticipated season change. I had expected to minister through my public vocation until hitting the big 7-0 in 2026, then do the Social Security thing and see what the Lord would have next for me.
(Years ago, on a personal fasting and prayer retreat, I felt like my active ministry days would run until I was 75, and I have been operating on that premise for several decades now. I’m not saying the Lord is calling me to my eternal home that year, but it would mark a season change…little did I know that change would happen sooner).
Many of you have followed that season change when I started writing about it last April, and I sincerely thank you for your sincere encouragement and heartfelt prayers. Words that genuinely convey my appreciation are hard to come by.
Now, nine months later, I am in a rhythm and routine that I believe is where the Lord wants me to be. It didn’t come without various trials and testing that saw both failures and successes, but each played its part in reaching this season’s destination—the readjohnpace blogs and podcast.
Now, the focus is my 2024 word (and yes, I just learned it 😁). A balanced life is my resolution.
Steven Covey wrote that our four basic needs are physical, social, mental, and spiritual. What binds them together to leave a legacy is “the fire within.”[1] That is the balance I look for this year.
Wisdom penned in Proverbs 16:11,
“A just balance and scales belong to the LORD; All the weights of the bag are His concern” (NASB).
And yes, the context for this passage deals with honesty in business (having a heavy stone for selling and a light stone for buying), a life principle emerges. All the stones are to be equal in weight; one is not used at the expense of another.
That is the balance I seek for “all the weights in the bag are His concern.”
[1] Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill, First Things First: To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy ; [the New York Times Bestseller], 1. free press ed, Self-Help - Business (New York: Free Press, 2003). Pages 44-49.