Busy. It’s the word that most defines our lives. The demands are immense and the pressures are real. And sometimes we don’t know if we can juggle it all. Something’s gotta give or something’s gunna drop.
And too often the ball that drops in our juggling act is Jesus.
I admit, I probably don’t know what busy is until I have kids. 
I can feel busy now, but I know that kids offer a whole new definition to the word busy. However, I think the principle remains the same: in our individual busyness, we are in a juggling act as we juggle the varying responsibilities and demands of life.
Think of seven balls, all different colors depending on importance and all labeled accordingly: relationships, marriage, ministry, work, school, kids, Jesus. We toss relationships high in the air so we don’t have to deal with it for a moment. We’ll catch it later when it comes back down. Work, kids, school—these are daily juggles that we constantly catch and throw back up in the air. If we focus on any one ball too much, everything else may drop. And too often for me, the ball that drops is Jesus. I’ll pick Him up later when I have more time. Right now, I need to keep juggling these responsibilities and demands.
But our juggling act never stops. We go to sleep each night just to wake up and begin the juggling routine. This is life and life is busy. Juggling these demands is the only way to balance them. We can’t easily grasp seven balls, but we can juggle them and then get to hold each one momentarily.
However, while we may juggle every other part of our lives, Jesus should never be in on that juggling act because we could drop Him in the midst of it. He must be the constant, invariable aspect of our lives. The one thing we are not willing to juggle or to risk because His Word promises that if we hope in Him, we will not grow weary.
So come all who are weary and heavy laden, and He will give you rest (Matthew 11:28). Don’t risk the possibility of dropping Jesus in your juggling act; keep Him as the one thing you constantly hold onto—don’t juggle Jesus at all.
“Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40: 29-31
A Flame in the Dark 
I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on this subject. I think one of the most difficult things in life is balancing the distribution of your time.
To go back to your metaphor, you say not to juggle Jesus as the solution to the problem you outline. I think there might be another way to think about it in the context your metaphor.
If we are jugglers by our very nature, since we have limited resources (e.g. time), then we can’t stop juggling our priorities. Things like relationships, marriage, ministry, work, school, kids all put tremendous demands on our time and attention. But I think it is more helpful to not think of Jesus as a separate ball that we are juggling. I think we are called to incorporate Jesus into each one of the balls that we are juggling. He should be the focus in our relations, marriage, ministry, school, kids, etc.
Here’s the cool part — when you are juggling there is pretty much always a ball in one of your hands, whether catching or releasing. So if you incorporate Him into all of your priorities… he will always be in contact with you and and your activities that you happen to be focusing on in that moment.
Just a different way of thinking about it. This way we don’t hold Jesus separate from those other things, but make sure he is connected to each and every one… This isn’t necessarily in tension with what you said, just a different route to the same sort of goal of always having Jesus as the focus.
Great thoughts, Kevin! I totally agree. Of course, with any metaphor, there are different angles to look at it. I recently wrote another blog entry about this necessity of connecting with Jesus throughout our day and having Him be part of those details and those daily activities. God has definitely been challenging me and showing me what it means to walk out the greatest commandment in all areas of my life because it is all about Him and we can find rest in Him in the midst of juggling those demands. So right on, I appreciate your thoughts. Thanks for sharing that new angle and exposing the truth in it! :) See you Sunday!
These thoughts are very true. Thanks to both for sharing! I think it is a combination of both. Jesus is deserving of His own ball; we need to set aside time just for Him and, as the blog suggests, this should not be juggled or compromised. I like the song, since it emphasizes the daily one on one time we need to have with Jesus. Along the same lines, Jesus should be a part of every ball we juggle, because without Him being a part of each one, we could not juggle them as successfully. He shouldn’t be compartmentalized out of all of the things that go into making up our days. Rather, He should be part of each thing. So I think both thoughts go together: Have Jesus part of every ball you are juggling, but don’t juggle the ball set aside specifically to focus on Him and be near to Him.