::Matt Tullos::


As a leader I strive for balance. I long for my tires, spinning plates, and brain chemicals to be balanced. I long for three well-balanced meals. I rarely adjust the balance on my home theatre speakers- totally straight up the middle, like ducks in a row, is the way I like them. But balance ain’t easy. Someone’s always putting a weighty thumb of the scale. Read the self help books, go to the seminars, even appear on Dr. Phil and chances are that you’ll still have to work hard to find the balance in life. Jesus remains the only One who was able to strike a balance. If you think that you’re balanced, you might want to check the ego. It’s probably out of balance.

So as we end this well-intentioned, superbly addressed and appropriately themed issue of Leading Adults we have a challenge for you, our beloved readers. Place your hand on your PDA and repeat after me:

• I promise not take myself so seriously, remembering that God made the hippo and the hammerhead shark.

• I promise to look at all the incredible blessings that are buried under our to-do lists, agendas, and behind the billboards that blur across the windshield as I shift into fifth on the open road.

• I will remember that Jesus took naps even during extreme gale warnings.

• I will chose to let myself off the hook when critical remarks fly my direction. If I wanted to judge my life on the opinions of others, I chose the wrong Savior.

• I will remember to never attend a Church Business meeting, chaperone a youth retreat, get a root canal, and stand in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles in the same week.

• I will try to give more than I get. I can’t keep it anyway. Remember God is planning a huge end-of-the-earth bonfire. Even the antique doilies my wife bought for next-to-nothing on E-bay will be ashes.

• I will spend more time loving the spouse than trying to upgrade, tweak, or makeover the spouse.

• I will remember that this life is not predictable. It is best lived in a state of dangerous wonder rather than linear monotony.

• I will NOT try to figure it all out today and I really don’t expect you to do so either.

• I will make it job #1 to hang on for dear life to my family, my friends, my mission and my Jesus. Everything else I’ll move to the back of the line.