April 2005 Ensign - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

26
ABalanced
Keeping the daily demands of life in balance
is one of the great tasks of mortality.
BY BRENT L. TOP
Afew years ago, while on vacation, our family
encountered some problems with our car. Great
was our relief when the mechanic informed us
the problems were not serious; all that was needed was
a minor adjustment to the carburetor that would allow for
a more balanced mix of gasoline and oxygen.
In the years since, I have had many opportunities to see
that a proper balance is important not only in machinery
maintenance but also in our own lives. A periodic tune-up
of our personal priorities and a regular inspection of the direction
and desired destination of our lives help insure
us against temporal, emotional, and spiritual breakdowns.
Keeping the daily demands of life in balance is one of the
great tasks of mortality. All of us may feel pulled in different
directions at some time or another. We may even carry to an
extreme our efforts to live gospel principles faithfully, thus
upsetting the delicate balance of our lives and intruding
upon our personal peace and family harmony.
My wife, Wendy, experienced this difficult situation. For
years she had nearly exhausted herself, thinking she had to
be the perfect wife and mother, the perfect Church member,
the perfect neighbor and citizen. Instead of feeling joy,
she often felt overwhelmed and discouraged. Her frustration
was further exacerbated when well-intentioned leaders
and friends seemed to indicate that if she had enough
faith, she would be able to accomplish all these things.
Only after a personal crisis of depression and anxiety was
she able to understand
fully the source of her suffering.
It was a painful time not only for
her but for our entire family. We have grown
stronger and learned many lessons as a result. But
perhaps we could have been spared much of the pain if we
had more clearly perceived the need to maintain temporal
and spiritual balance.
When I served as a bishop, I discovered that my wife’s
experience was not unique. Likewise, Elder Dean L. Larsen,
an emeritus member of the Seventy, observed, “I seem to
be encountering more and more frequently in my circulation
among the membership of the Church, people who
are honestly trying to avoid sin, who are really doing their
best, as they understand, to live in accordance with the
principles of the gospel but who are unhappy, frustrated,
and disillusioned to a considerable degree.” 1
King Benjamin warned his people about going to
extremes, even in doing good: “See that all these
things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not
requisite that a man should run faster than he has
strength” (Mosiah 4:27).
Maintaining Temporal Balance
The imbalance between the temporal and the spiritual is
an age-old problem that seems to be growing worse in our
day of increasing materialism. Elder M. Russell Ballard of the