One of the most difficult balancing acts in modern living is hinted at in the opening lines of the famous "Serenity Prayer":

"God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference."

God may grant us serenity, courage, and wisdom, but if we lack the faith and patience to wait on Him to tell us when to act, we may "jump the gun" and make a difficult or trying situation worse by acting to change things prematurely, or by trying to fix people or things that aren't ours to fix. A lot of us spend a remarkable amount of time and energy trying to fix things that ain't even broke. Others let their psycho-spiritual inertia keep them from changing course when they need to, or from taking action to change what they're supposed too. They don't lack courage so much as they (we) seem to lack energy.

The Word of God, in scriptures, in the form of the man, Jesus the Christ, and thru the inspiration, motivation, and whispering of the Holy Spirit, is like the tight-rope walker's senses and balance pole, and may keep us from falling into the errors of inappropriate passivity or action, either one, if we wait upon the Lord, and are attentive to His word.

The whole of the serenity prayer, beyond the lines paraphrased above, points to the way to successfully walk the narrow and straight way, without losing our balance and falling off it in our impatience or passivity:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

(Atributed to American Theologian, and commentator, Professor Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892-1971)