Followby Dan Amos
I know the clichéd commercial’s line ends “…I can’t get up” but if you don’t have any margin the effect is the same. Margins are the available space on the page of life where we can add the extra sentence when we’ve already filled the page. It’s that space where we experience the unexpected. My margins have been on my mind constantly.
Martin presented a sermon last year on creating space for others and margin in our finances so we build financial space to act when someone needs help. I am finding the concept applies to pretty much every part of my life.
For instance, when I was receiving career transition assistance (in 1996) the counselors would tell everyone to make sure we exercised, ate nutritious meals and got plenty of sleep because the process was going to be stressful. This concept applies to all of my life now that I’m older and less resilient.
It applies to relationships too. I can’t buy relationships; they only prosper and grow with the time I put into them. My family and friends give me the grace when I have to move into the margins for a short while. But this only works if I’ve established healthy margins during the rest of the time.
Where I really need to follow Jesus’ example is in creating my spiritual margin. Jesus was surrounded by sick and hurting people and he was uniquely able to help them. Though living as a man, he lived in the power of the Holy Spirit and he knew the scriptures like no one else. But we see him get away from the crowds, rest, and spend time with the Father. He actively worked on his margin.
When his time came and there was no more margin left, he was prepared because he lived his life with margins, within the will of the Father. This is where I need to be too. The financial, physical, and emotional margins take intentional effort to create and maintain. I need to put the same effort into extending my spiritual margin
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