Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. (Acts 4:29)

When I was younger, I could eat as much of anything I wanted, and get away with it.  As I’ve gotten older, I learned to be more careful about what goes from my plate to my mouth.  

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for my work/life balance. I’ve always been hungry for success, and success at work is the first thing I’d fill my plate with each day.  I knew it wasn’t the healthiest approach, but I figured even if I filled up with work first, I could still find room for other important things like family, friends, and faith.  

But no matter how hard I tried, filling up on work first always left me feeling empty. 

In this passage of Acts, we find the early church facing significant opposition to the mission of Jesus. I am deeply moved by how they reached out with prayer. They could have asked for protection and safety, less opposition, and a lighter load. Instead, they prayed for strength to continue to speak about Jesus with “great boldness”.  Instead of the comfort of ice cream, they reached for their healthy vegetables!

How many times have I reached out in prayer, asking for help living off my poorly balanced life diet?  But I need to ask myself, “Why would I ask Jesus to bless a spiritually deficient diet?” What I need is Jesus to be at the center of my plate and arrange everything else around him.  Jesus brings the balance to my life that I’m hungry for.  

When work required me to travel over a weekend, Jesus gave me the boldness to tell my manager that I would be returning home on Saturday. I could have said something ambiguous about personal reasons. But I was bold in saying that I could not skip Sunday church service, that it was too important to myself and my family. 

While this is only a single request for a single day, by speaking boldly about my faith, I’ve declared to my work community that Jesus is the first thing that feeds my hunger. Not only that, but I had a coworker reply to my email stating that I was a “good man” and that he was inspired by my example.

Whenever I feed on work to fill my life, I finish the week feeling empty and consumed.  But instead, I filled up on Jesus first, then consumed the right balance of work.   Not only can I fully enjoy my daily spiritual nourishment, but perhaps I influenced others at work to examine their own life diet!

Dear Jesus, thank you not only for the examples of how to live and how to treat others, but thank you for the power, authority, and freedom to be truly fed and filled by you. As I move through Lent towards Easter, please remind me that you are the one who can fill that hunger inside me.  Give me the courage to put you first, and the confidence to know that when you’re at the top of my life, everything else will be balanced.