The Middle Road

I once had a friend who told me that if Jesus knew Buddha (or rather Siddhartha Gautama) that they would have been friends. I don't know a lot about Buddhism and so I can't make a complete statement, but I do know that Buddhism promotes the philosophy of the Middle Road, and on that, I think the Bible agrees (Though I think Jesus would have been friends with Buddha anyways, since He came to seek and to save).

So, what is the Middle Road? Well, for Buddha it meant living between poverty and luxury were you have what you need but not in excess. A lot of people, including myself, have the idea that with great wealth, all our problems would fly out the window of our million dollar mansion. On the other hand, there are some people who think they need to forsake everything and live in poverty since Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and follow Him (Luke 18:18-23). But I don't think either of those are what we should be aiming for. I was reminded of all this while reading my chapter in Proverbs for the day. Proverbs 30:8-9 says:

"...give me neither poverty nor riches;

feed me with the food that is needful for me,

           lest I be full and deny you

and say, “Who is the Lord?”

           or lest I be poor and steal

and profane the name of my God"

So, I think we need to be wary of taking things to the extreme. I also believe that this can be related to other areas of our lives as well. One non-spiritual example is this: You can't only eat healthy food and never exercise and expect to be healthy, while you also can't exercise a lot and eat junk food and expect to be healthy. So, if we spend all of our time reading our Bible and no time living out what we read, we can't expect to bear any fruit for Christ. Also, if we go out and try to change the world without having a good relationship with God, chances are things won't go so well.

So what do you think? Do we need to find a middle ground? What things need to be moderated in your life? I'd love to hear about it.