Margins: Guarding Your Time

Each of us have a unique time allotment. Time is God’s gift to us.  What we do with it is our gift to God. Benjamin Franklin said, “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.” If you want to guard you time you need to leave a margin.

Leave a Margin

Wayne Muller says, “There is a universal refrain: 'I am so busy.' We say this to one another with no small degree of pride, as if our exhaustion were a trophy, our ability to withstand stress a mark of real character. The busier we are, the more important we seem to ourselves and, we imagine, to others. To whiz through our obligations without time for a single mindful breath -- this has become the model of a successful life. Let us take a collective breath. Let us for one collective day cease our desperate striving for more. God does not want us to be exhausted.”

If you want to reestablish boundaries you’ve got to leave a margin.  In The Overload Syndrome, Dr. Richard Swenson says, “Margin is the space that once existed between our load and our limits. Margin is the space between vitality and exhaustion. It is our breathing room, our reserves, our leeway. Margin is the opposite of overload.”

Down Time

In his book, Courageous Leadership , Bill Hybels writes about a season of ministry when he almost quit. He said, “The pace at which I was doing the work of God was destroying the work of God in me.”

All of us need down time. The Biblical word is Sabbath -- it’s a day of rest, a day to recharge our spiritual batteries, a day to refocus on our relationship with God. Jewish Rabbis taught that it was a day to let our souls catch up with our bodies. The word “Sabbath” actually means “to catch one’s breath". Life is deflating. The Sabbath is inflating. We allow the Spirit of God to breath into us!

One of the first boundaries God establishes is between work and rest. Genesis 2:2 says, “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

Go ahead and work hard for six days -- create an entire universe if you can. But you better take time to rest or you’re going to get out of whack, out of balance, and out of rhythm. There’s an old saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” We need to find a balance between work and play, activity and rest, creation and recreation.  Jesus said, “Man was not made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man.” In other words, the Sabbath isn’t one more religious loophole to jump through. It’s about leaving a margin.

What Are You Talking About? - by Jill Windham

Have you spent time with your family lately?  Let me explain.  Statistics show that parents spend on average 3.5 minutes a day in meaningful conversation with their children.  The numbers are around 1.7 minutes a day between husband and wife.  Studies also show that 66% of American families eat their dinner in front of a television.   I hope you find that as disturbing as I do, especially since American adults spend 96 minutes per day playing xBox.  So, what I am asking you is, have you spent time with your family today, besides the normal issuing of chores, discussion of bills, helping with homework?  Meaningful conversation is most definitely not “Clean your room,” or, “Honey, please fill the car up with gas today.”  We must remember that before churches were instated, before schools were created, God created husband and wife, parent and child.  If you haven’t talked to your family lately, you are heading for turbulent times in your household.  Without open and loving communication, what was once a peaceful environment can turn to one of hostility and resentment.  I challenge you tonight - sit down with your family and eat dinner together.  Turn the TV off, and engage in conversation that matters. 

Here’s some ideas to get your conversation rolling. 

Ask your family:

“Everyone go around and tell your favorite thing that happened today.”

“Tell me about the funniest thing you saw today.”

“If you could be eating dinner with anyone that is alive, who would you pick?”

For little ones, ask things like:

“If you could be any animal, which one would you be?”

“What’s three things you wish you could eat for dinner every night?”

For husband and wife, ask:

“Tell me about a memory you have of eating with your family when you were a kid.”

“Where are some places you hope to go with me, once our kids are gone one day?”

It may not seem easy, but let me assure you, it’s worth it, to converse with your family.  The more you try, the more open they will be.  Give it a shot…  your family is waiting!

Hope in His Life – by Jill Windham

I have always loved the verse found in I Corinthians 15:19.  It simply says, “If we only have hope in this life, we are of all men most miserable.”

I’ve been to many funerals in my life, and this is a verse that frequently makes an appearance because of the comfort it brings.  It is comforting to think that this life is not all there is!  Heaven is a real place, where we will be reunited with loved ones, and where we will see Jesus face to face.

However true and wonderful this is, I believe that this verse is not only talking about eternity.  Can you imagine, if we only had hope in our economy, how worried and miserable we would be?  What if we only heard of gas prices rising, debt climbing, job loss, and financial ruin?  What if we only could see sickness, infirmity, depression, and pain?  What a miserable life that would be!

God challenges us over and over in His word to take His promises literally.  He says our economy is based on Heaven’s system, not the world’s systems.  He says we can live in abundant health and peace, though a thousand may fall at our side and ten thousand at our right hand.  Our hope is built on the unseen, not the things we see with our eyes.

I am asking you to see the hope that God has provided us in Jesus.  Heaven will be wonderful, but we are here, now.  God wants this life to be a great life, filled with prosperity, health, and abundance.  So tomorrow, when you are reading the morning paper, remember… what you are reading are simply words.  We have hope that surpasses the reports we read.  Live in His promises.  They are all “yes, and so be it.”  There is hope in this life because of Jesus!

- Jill

Thou Shalt Hang Out at Wells

Wells were ancient hang outs. They were the BC version of coffeehouses, chat rooms, and malls. Jesus didn't invite people to the synagogue. He hung out at wells. He was often accused of hanging out with the wrong people at the wrong places. But Jesus didn't let that keep him from a party with a tax collector or a conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well. He went to where the people were. Maybe the gospel has been quarantined behind the four walls of church buildings long enough? The church is called to compete in the middle of the marketplace.

Jesus said in Matt 5:14-16,

“You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. 15 If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. 16 Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand — shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”  THE MESSAGE

Let’s go out and be who we were made to be!

Inaction Regrets

In his book, If Only, psychologist Dr. Neil Roese makes a distinction between two different types of regret: regrets of action and regrets of inaction. A regret of action is doing something you wish you hadn’t done. A regret of inaction is not doing something that you wish you had done. Let me put it in theological terms. Actions regrets are the result of sins of commission. Inaction regrets are the result of sins of omission.

I think the church has focused on sins of commission long enough. They are easier to identify. But the greatest regrets at the end of our lives won’t be the things we did wrong. It will be not doing the right things—things we could have, should have, and would have done.

Action regrets taste bad, but inaction regrets leave a bitter aftertaste that lasts a lifetime. Inaction regrets haunt us because they leave us asking what if. We are left to wonder how our lives would have been different had we taken the risk or seized the opportunity. What if we had chased the lion instead of running away? Somehow our lives seem incomplete. Failing to take a risk is almost like losing a piece of the jigsaw puzzle to your life. It leaves a gaping hole. When we get to the end of our lives, our greatest regrets will be the missing pieces.

That conviction is backed up by the research of two social psychologists named Tom Gilovich and Vicki Medvec. Their research found that time is a key factor in what we regret. Over the short term, we tend to regret our actions. But over the long haul, we tend to regret inactions. Their study found that over the course of an average week, action regrets outnumber inaction regrets 53% to 47%. But when people look at their lives as a whole, inaction regrets outnumber action regrets 84% to 16%. Don’t put off living another day!