Do you ever have a problem with balancing everything that you have to?  I know that in this Christmas season things can be overwhelming.  Not only do we have to buy presents and get ready to see family (which can be a blessing and a huge stress!), but we also have to keep up with all the normal things in our lives.  I know that sometimes balancing all the things in my life can seem almost impossible.  Between the continuous ministry at UCM, being a father and a husband, my schoolwork...etc etc, life can seem daunting.  It is during these times though that I think about the Hebrew word Shalom.  You may have heard of it but for those that haven't Shalom, is a word that has many uses in Hebrew.  It can mean both hello and goodbye but is most often translated as "peace."  So if you were to say hello like they did in the Bible, you would be wishing peace upon that person.  Shalom has another sense though, one that literally means "wholeness" and this is what I want to remind you of.  God has a plan for each and every one of us and he desires that we feel a sense of Shalom in our lives.  You see, when we follow the will of God and follow Christ, we are returning to a sense of Shalom, or wholeness.  It is true we will feel a sense of peace about everything, but that comes out of the balance that we will have in our lives.  Like a gymnast on the balance beam, we will walk and make it look effortless because of the Shalom in our lives.  During this time of year as we remember the birth of Christ we can remember this sense of Shalom, because it is in Christ that we are given the opportunity to be reconciled.  I leave with a prophecy from the book of Isaiah about the Messiah.  Read about how the world would be different with the Messiah and how a sense of Shalom would be restored.  Then, rely on God and ask him to restore Shalom in your own life. 

Isaiah 11: 1-2, 6-9 (The Message)

 A green Shoot will sprout from Jesse's stump, from his roots a budding Branch.  The life-giving Spirit of God will hover over him, the Spirit that brings wisdom and understanding, The Spirit that gives direction and builds strength, the Spirit that instills knowledge and Fear-of-God.  Fear-of-God will be all his joy and delight.  The wolf will romp with the lamb, the leopard sleep with the kid. Calf and lion will eat from the same trough, and a little child will tend them.  Cow and bear will graze the same pasture, their calves and cubs grow up together, and the lion eat straw like the ox.  The nursing child will crawl over rattlesnake dens, the toddler stick his hand down the hole of a serpent.  Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill on my holy mountain.  The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-Alive, a living knowledge of God ocean-deep, ocean-wide.