"He who has ears, let him hear."

I've shared with some of you my vision for writing a book sometime in my future on the concept of "homeostasis." I'm not exactly sure that this will become a reality, but I thought I would share this idea with you ... as well as a new revelation the Lord gave me the other night.

In my "A Thanksgiving Revelation" entry, I mentioned that all things tend to find a state of balance - in the medical/physiologic world, we call this balance "homeostasis" or "equilibrium." Now we all understand that balance has to do with finding a point of compromise between two extremes. Balancing a budget is finding the perfect compromise between money spent and money earned/saved. A gymnast balancing on a balance beam has perfected the art of keeping his body weight perfectly over the beam - no more to the left than to the right. I find this concept very fascinating because I feel it has incredible spiritual implication.

Before I go there, though, I want to share with you how the chemical and physiologic concepts of equilibrium and homeostasis give this idea of "balance" a more dynamic color. Hopefully I can convey this in not too "scientific" terms - we'll see. Alright, say we have a chemical reaction going. We throw two different solutions into a beaker (I hate to do this, but I think it will be easier to understand if I use some letter notation: so, our first two solutions are A and B... sorry). Ok, the two are going to mix and interact and do their reacting. Now we would all assume that the two reactants (solutions) would completely combine to form the new product (C) and there would be nothing left of the first two (A and B). We assume we have A + B = C, all of A mixes with all of B to leave nothing but C, but this is not really what happens. The truth is that the two reach a point of equilibrium between the first two solutions and the product. Some or most of A will join with some or most of B to give us mostly C, but also some leftover A and B, even if there are equal amounts. So, at any one point we would be able to take a sample of the mixed solution and find some of everything. There might be more of C than A and B, but they would all be there. Additionally, the solution is, in a way, alive because single molecules of A and B are constantly changing from being joined together to falling apart. They may stay together for 10 seconds and then fall apart for 1 second. But they keep switching. So, equilibrium is that point where the numbers of molecules of A and B and C aren't changing anymore. Individual molecules are switching, but every time one set of A and B break apart, another A and B join together. The numbers are constant. We could almost say that the solutions are in a constant state of tension - a pushing and pulling between A and B against C, but there is no obvious movement anymore. This point of tension is where life exists.

In the human body, well, in every living thing, cells are busy making stuff, using nutrients, producing waste, getting rid of waste, sending out their products to other cells, and many other functions. The way they stay alive is by toying with that equilibrium tension. One cell needs some of A but has too much of B so it pumps out B, but another cell gives it A. In the body, this is amazingly tuned. What do we have, several billion cells or something? And they all communicate with each other to send out what they have too much of and gladly accept that which they need. (Goodness, sounds like something Jesus said - but that's not where I'm going right now.) So, life exists in a constant state of tension that we call homeostasis. In fact, the difference between a dead person and a living person is that a living person is still in a state of tension, the dead person has lost the delicate balance between his cells... at least this is the physical explanation.

Alright, if you're not burned out yet, and you're still reading, here comes the spiritual revelation and application. Just as our bodies find life right in the midst of physiologic tension, so our spirituality finds its existence in the midst of spiritual tension. For example, we have the big dichotomies like life and death, poverty and wealth, love and hate. These are seemingly obvious in their placements into the "desirable" and "undesirable" categories, but I think that this whole issue of tension is more dynamic than just "We desire to live, to have wealth, and to love." This is true, but the role of death, poverty, and hate are not useless. (Goodness, I sound like I'm about to inform you of "the power of the dark side.") What I am trying to say is that there is a purpose for each end of the spectrum: we'll just use life and death as our example.

Jesus said that unless a seed dies, it cannot bring forth new life. Unless we die to ourselves and are born again, we cannot experience newness of abundant life. So, in this sense, the Lord says that death is absolutely necessary and an important part of life – maybe even good. Do you see what I mean?

Life and death seem to be pretty clear-cut. But we can take this further... say, Justice and Mercy? There is a moment when it is perfectly representative of the Lord's character to bring justice, but He is also the perfection of mercy. Or how about Confidence and Humility? Is there a time to be confident and a time to be humble? Or, are they really different faces of the same thing? You could certainly be confident, and also be humble. But the world might not recognize it. What about further being able to discern between true, godly, confidence and pride or arrogance? That’s a bit tougher. Or humility and shame or self-pity (which is pride, too)? Even sorrow and depression are not the same. The Lord sanctifies holy sorrow, but depression is the devil's perversion of it.

Here's just a list of some of these dichotomies that I've come up with:
Blessings-curses, pain-numbness, poverty-wealth, death-life, truth-deception, first-last, hot-cold, sin-righteousness, grace-judgment, light-dark, good-evil, diversity-unity, love-hate, justice-mercy, sight-blind, hearing-deafness, joy-sadness, peace-confusion/war, shame-humility, beauty-ugliness, pride-confidence, dissonance-harmony, knowledge-foolishness, hunger-satisfaction, work-rest, time-eternity, reaping-sowing, harvesting-planting, suffering-comfort, building-tearing down, gather-scatter, laughter-mourning, flesh-spirit, mind-heart, strength-weakness.

See, there are quite a few - and I'm sure that's just scratching the surface. And these dichotomies exist by the Lord's design, so I am left believing that there really is a "time and purpose for every season." Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and also the Lord of Hosts. He is the First and the Last. He is the image of perfect balance.

Hopefully, I’m making my point here about the presence of this spiritual tension that exists between these different ends of the spiritual spectrum. Just like in our cells or in a beaker, we expect that when we come to Jesus we get life, peace, joy, grace, strength, and eternity. I think this is true, but I think it’s more true that the Lord gives us equilibrium. He shows us how A+B doesn’t exactly equal C. It does, but there’s more. There is a reason why A and B still exist. The Lord purifies our perception of reality. In our spiritual lives, we start to see how death and life are connected - how the Lord gives us peace, but we are also called to fight in His army – the Lord will give us strength, but that’s usually only when we see how weak we are – and He gives us eternity, but that doesn’t negate the time that He’s given us here and now.

I am fascinated by the significance of the crucifixion with regard to this idea. When Jesus dies, I think the heavens and earth shook partly because in this moment, the two ends of this spiritual spectrum got bent around and superimposed on each other. In the same moment that Jesus died, He gave life; in the same moment He who was righteous became sin and we who were sinners became righteous; He was exalted, but only through His humility; in His ugliness, we became beautiful; His work gave us rest; He was hated so we could be loved; He became the curse so we could become the blessing.

Jesus set the perfect example of perfect balance - of perfect homeostasis - equilibrium. He put light and darkness together without making it turn gray. He blended the Lion and the Lamb without destroying either. I think this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus: we long to walk the way He did. We want to be "perfect as He is perfect." We want to cry when He cries and laugh when He laughs. We want to be willing to be poor that we might have true riches. We want to humble ourselves so that He can exalt us in His time. We want to acknowledge our deafness and blindness so that we can come to Him to hear and see. We accept His judgments in our lives because we believe in His love and His desire to purify us.

So, this is, to me, another picture of what it means to be a child of God. We live in homeostasis with the Lord.

My final revelation to end this entry with is borrowed from our physical anatomy. One night I was laying in bed thinking about all this homeostasis and dichotomies in reality stuff and my mind was drawn to thinking about cranial nerves. It seemed odd, but I just kept exploring the direction the Lord was taking me. The human body has 12 cranial nerves which control many of our senses in the head and they also affect some in the body. They are never very fun to learn about because of their complexities. However, now that I've had to learn them half a dozen times, I really appreciate them. I started thinking about cranial nerve VIII - the Vestibulo-Cochlear nerve. It is called this because one branch goes to the vestibular system where we get our sense of balance and the other branch goes to the cochlea - the ear, where we get our hearing. As I was lying in bed, I asked the Lord, "Lord, why did you design us so that hearing and balance are on the same nerve?"

"The degree to which your life finds balance in Me is dependent on the degree to which you listen to Me."

Whoa. Seems simple, but the truth of the matter is really that the more we choose to listen to the Lord, the more we will understand His perfect timing and be able to live in spiritual homeostasis. Even Cranial Nerve VIII testifies!