Read Proverbs 30:8

The longer I live, the more I realize the ease with which we can slip into extremes. 

I see it all around me and sometimes, to my own embarrassment, I find it in myself. A major prayer of mine as I grow older is, "Lord, keep me balanced!"

We need a balance between work and play, between kindness and firmness, between waiting and praying, between saving and spending, between wanting too much and expecting too little, between warm acceptance and keen discernment, between grace and truth.

For many folks, the struggle with imbalance is not an annual conflict—it's a daily grind.

The adversary of our souls is the expert of extremes. He never runs out of ways to push us to the limit...to get us to go so far out on one end we cast perspective to the winds.

The longer I live, the more I must fight the tendency to go to extremes...and the more I value balance.

Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Wisdom for the Way (Nashville: J. Countryman, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.