Overloaded - Where is the Margin?

Our church family is doing this series called One Month To Live - 30 Days to a No-Regrets Life. We’re challenging folks to live the next 30 days as if it was their last...NOT because we are going to die in a month, but because, Lord willing, we're going to live many more years. We believe that if you live this way for the next 30 days at the end of the month we'll know how to really live. We'll learn to discard the things that are not important and focus on the things that shoudl always be our priorities - relationship to God and meaningful relationships with the people around us. If you really live your life as though you only had one month to live you would rediscover our passion.

We're praying that in this One Month To Live campaign we will take steps to help create margin in our crowded lives that so often rob us from living passionately. Dr. Richard Swenson in his landmark book Margin says margin is the difference between your load and you limit. The less margin you have in life the more stress you’ll experience in your life. It’s like trying to read a book with no spaces between the words and no margins on the page. Without margin, without space, sentences are chaotic and incomprehensible and a life without margin is chaotic and incomprehensible. When I put a little margin and space in my life it all makes sense again. There’s the problem…most of us live our lives without any margin at all.

We have no margin physically. We don’t get enough rest. We don’t eat right and exercise. We have no margin in our schedules. Our calendars are crowded. We have no margin in our finances. We just live from paycheck to paycheck. We have absolutely no margin in our lives and we wonder why we feel so stressed and lose our passion in life. We get so busy in the details that we miss the most important things in life.

What could you do to create some margin in your life this week? In the middle of our crowded, over-scheduled lives we have to create a space intentionally to meet with Jesus. Most of us fall into this thing we call when-then thinking. That’s when we say, "When things settle down then we’ll get around to that. When I’m not so busy I’ll take care of those important things." LISTEN…This is our life. If we’re not doing the important things now they are never going to get done.

We can learn a great lesson from Jesus. Look at how He handled this problem of making space in His life. In Mark it says, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for Him, and when they found Him, they exclaimed: ‘Everyone is looking for You!’ Jesus replied, ‘Let us go somewhere else….’ ” (Mark 1:35-38, NIV).

Even Jesus had to create space in His life, in His schedule, so He could meet and talk alone with His Father. Even Jesus had to do that so we know we are going to have to do that. Create some "God room" in your life this week and you'll find room for the rest of those important, eternal things that have been sitting on your "to do" list.