I drive early this morning, fog still lifting from the road and the rivers. I say that it looks like what I imagine England to look like, all deep green and misted. The rolling greens and spiraling gardens testify to their maker--we're growing, we are! With all the rain and intermittent sun, humidity and long summer days, they get plenty of all the things they need to flourish. Not too hot, not too dry, not too wet, not too windy. It has been a summer of perfect balance. They get what they need most when they need it most.

Unlike me and us.

I'm pestered by all this talk of balance in the Christian life. It has always brushed my shoulders with indignation, its lofty evenness spreading like hot gravy into every crevice on my plate of life. I am a legalist by nature--we all are, thinking that our way is right, that our apple is different. I bristle against balance and grasp for it at the same time. I feel the pendulum swing left and scramble for right. Always right.

Today in class he talked about being extreme, none of this cool modern idea of balance and political correctness. He talked about an extreme Christ, an extreme life and an extreme death. I think about how His food was the do the will of the One who sent Him--how He did what He saw His Father doing. How this is what made Christ extreme--not miracles or grace or love or death or consistency or balance.

He was extreme because His sustenance was doing all of the things He saw His Father doing.

But He still kept the cloak of the people wrapped around His shoulders, still with a rock for a pillow and an outstretched hand to a whore; still with righteous indignation in the temple and little children gathered to Him; still with a rebuke to His disciples and an eye on His mother; still with healing in one hand and a carpenter's hammer in the other; still God and still fully man.

He did what He saw His Father doing, not motivated by a method or principle or a denomination or politic or gene. He was confident of His sonship and never strove for balance.

Just more of God, however He chose to work that day.

Always seek peace between your heart
and God, but in this world, always be careful
to remain ever-restless, never satisfied,
and always abounding in the work of the Lord.
Jim Elliot