Struggling with balance in your life? Me, too.

I am reading "Pursuit of Holiness in The Lord" by Jonathan Edwards. Great book, get this book and be prepared to be convicted! I have to share what I read this morning........

"Paul lived after his conversion not much more than thirty years; and in those thirty years he did more than a thousand men commonly do in an age".
"This example may well make us reflect upon ourselves and consider how little we do for Christ and for our fellow creatures. We profess to be Christians as well as the apostle Paul, and Christ is worthy that we should serve him as Paul did. But how small are our labor and strength spent, and with what is our time filled up? Let us consider ourselves a little, and the manner of our spending our time. We labor to provide for ourselves and families, to maintain ourselves in credit, and to make our part good among men. But is that all for which we are sent into the world? Did He who made us and gave us our powers of mind and strength of body, and who gives us our time and our talents, give them to us chiefly to be spent in this manner, or in serving Him? Many years have rolled over the heads of some of us, and what have we lived for; what have we been doing all this time? How much is the world better for us? Were we here only to eat and to drink, and to devour the good which the earth produces? Many of the blessings of Providence have been conferred upon us, and where is the good that we have done in return? If we had never been born, or if we had died in infancy, of how much good would the world have been deprived?"

WOW!

This hits me right between the eyes. I struggle with this all the time and have wanted so bad to share that struggle from my heart, but I could never say it like Jonathan Edwards has here.
When Ben was young, I knew that to be my mission field and joy, shepherding him; then came homeschooling, more of a mission field. It is my great blessing from God to be a wife and mother. Nothing is more important than those jobs.
But now, I find myself struggling with balance in my life. Sometimes I feel as if my mission field has become these four walls and I struggle whether I have let that become enough. Yes, I am still a wife and I am so thankful for that blessing. I love cooking, not so much the cleaning or ironing, but I enjoy when both are done and finished. And yes, I have a side job of designing knit and crochet. But sometimes, honestly, I struggle with the value of my side job. I struggle with the eternal value of it in my life. Yes, I get great joy out of making things for others and I am so thankful for that ministry. That is the real joy that I get from my side job. I just want to be sure that I am not wasting the life that He has given me.
 The prayer of my heart is continually, "Lord, open my eyes to EVERY opportunity to be a missionary for you. Let me NOT pass up any opportunity to exemplify you in my life. Help me to not just exist for myself. Help my agenda to not take precedence over your plan for my life, my day."
I find myself sometimes just existing, spending my time filling my life with my agenda........."eating and devouring the good which the earth produces, enjoying the blessings of Providence"..........without a thought on the fact that it is not MY time, MY life or MY agenda that I should be filling. I am finding it hard to find that balance of enjoying what God has given me and making it count for Him, for He has rescued me......

Colossians 1:9-23

 9For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously12giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. 
The Incomparable Christ
      13For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

      15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. 19For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

      21And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach— 23if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.