Margin or Marginless? by Rick Warren
"God, listen to me shout, bend an ear to my prayer… You’ve always given me breathing room, a place to get away from it all." Psalm 61:1, 3 (MSG)
A lot of people are on overload and headed for a crash.
Consider these statistics:
*People now sleep 2½ fewer hours each night than people did a hundred years ago.
*The average work week is longer now than it was in the 1960s. · The average office worker has 36 hours of work piled up on his or her desk. It takes us three hours a week just to sort through it and find what we need.
*We spend eight months of our lives opening junk mail, two years of our lives playing phone tag with people, and five years waiting for people who are late for meetings.
At least in the U.S., we’re a piled-on, stretched-to-the limit society that is chronically rushed, chronically late, and chronically exhausted. Many of us feel like Job did when he said, “I have no peace! I have no quiet! I have no rest! And trouble keeps coming” (Job 3:26 GWT). Overload comes when we have too much activity in our lives, too much change, too many choices, too much work, too much debt, too much media exposure.
We’re stressed by information overload; we’re stressed by accessibility overload – we’re connected all the time. Simply put, we’re stressed by the pace of life. Is there a solution? Yes. The solution is to put some margin into your life. Margin is breathing room. It’s keeping a little reserve that you’re not using up. It’s not going from one meeting to the next to the next with no space in between. Margin is the space betweenyour load and yourlimit. But most of us are far more overloaded than we can handle, and there is no margin for error in our lives.
Dr. Richard Swenson, MD says this: “The conditions of modern day living devour margin. If you’re homeless we direct you to a shelter. If you’re penniless we offer you food stamps. If you’re breathless we connect you to oxygen. But if you’re marginless we give you one more thing to do. Marginless is being 30 minutes late to the doctor’s office because you were 20 minutes late getting out of the hairdresser because you were 10 minutes late dropping the children off at school because the car ran out of gas two blocks from a gas station and you forgot your purse. That’s marginless
Margin, on the other hand, is having breath at the top of the staircase, money at the end of the month, and sanity left over at the end of adolescence. Margin is grandma taking the baby for the afternoon. Margin is having a friend help carry the burden. Marginless is not having time to finish the book you’re reading on stress. Margin is having the time to read it twice. Marginless is our culture. Margin is counter-culture, having some space in your life and schedule. Marginless is the disease of our decade and margin is the cure.
I got done reading this and the one thing that stuck out to me what the definition of margin in adolesence..."[having enough] sanity left over." I think that was my problem right from the get-go. I was doomed from the minute I started college. It's sad, but true. I didn't have any sanity left because of my marginless lifestyle. Meeting after meeting, rehearsal after rehearsal, project after project, and class after class. It's taken these past 6 months for me to regain those years and years of lost time. Lost time wasted on worrying and panic and hurried tendancies. I still battle anxiety/panic attacks and stress because I'm a perfectionist and I'm a goal-oriented person who wants to make sure her goals are acheived at every nano-second of the day. But because my life-pace slowed down, I HAD TO learn how to slow down my body and mind. This helped reduce my frequent stress attacks and it has been such a blessing to my life.
Pastor Dave's message really hit home last night. First and foremost, he told us to "quite whining and crying and SHUT UP!" We get so wrapped up in what's going on in the natural around us that we completely forget what God is doing SUPERnaturally inside of us. "Change isn't change until you've CHANGED!"Pastor shouted. And if anyone knows me even a little bit, they'd notice that I have changed and that my life is huge evidence of that. Yesterday celebrated 6 months that I have been attending Faith Church. And in those 6 months, I have grown by leaps and bounds. If I could even explain to you how whole I feel, how fulfilled I have become since attending this church, you'd think I won the lottery. And it's funny because I have won the lottery...not in the world's system, but in God's. I learned how to listen to Him and my life is proof of that. In the 6 months I've been there, I have strengthened my relationship with my family, grown deeper in my faith in ways I didn't know were possible, forgiven so many people from my past who've hurt me, let go of terrible habits, overcame the most terrifying, emotionally-filled month of my life, found my purpose in the world, fell in love, got ENGAGED, and truly learned the meaning of obedient tything...which I believe, with all of my heart, lead to my amazing sum of inheritence. And that part is going swimmingly...it's just the matter of a few weeks that I will be completely free of debt to anyone and will be able to pay in FULL my wedding expenses. I will be able to pay CASH for everything...no credit cards! Yes, that came with a price. I had to lose my dad to a terrible act of violence, but as always, God turned something horrible into something wonderful. All in his timing.
So I guess what this entry is about may not fully pertain to you, but I'm sure you can find some meaning in it if you look closely.
SLOW DOWN. Take the time to acknowledge your creator. Do you think you just popped into thin air? Even if you believe in evolution...who do you think sparked anything to happen on this Earth to begin with? You were created by someone bigger than you. Let that sink in for a minute. Even if you aren't religious, know that life is bigger than little old you. Take time to smell the crisp winter air or truly look at your surroundings. Give yourself a break every now and then. You'd be suprised at how well you get to know yourself when you take just a little time for breathing room.
Peace & Love.
We’re stressed by information overload; we’re stressed by accessibility overload – we’re connected all the time. Simply put, we’re stressed by the pace of life. Is there a solution? Yes. The solution is to put some margin into your life. Margin is breathing room. It’s keeping a little reserve that you’re not using up. It’s not going from one meeting to the next to the next with no space in between. Margin is the space betweenyour load and yourlimit. But most of us are far more overloaded than we can handle, and there is no margin for error in our lives.
Dr. Richard Swenson, MD says this: “The conditions of modern day living devour margin. If you’re homeless we direct you to a shelter. If you’re penniless we offer you food stamps. If you’re breathless we connect you to oxygen. But if you’re marginless we give you one more thing to do. Marginless is being 30 minutes late to the doctor’s office because you were 20 minutes late getting out of the hairdresser because you were 10 minutes late dropping the children off at school because the car ran out of gas two blocks from a gas station and you forgot your purse. That’s marginless
Margin, on the other hand, is having breath at the top of the staircase, money at the end of the month, and sanity left over at the end of adolescence. Margin is grandma taking the baby for the afternoon. Margin is having a friend help carry the burden. Marginless is not having time to finish the book you’re reading on stress. Margin is having the time to read it twice. Marginless is our culture. Margin is counter-culture, having some space in your life and schedule. Marginless is the disease of our decade and margin is the cure.
I got done reading this and the one thing that stuck out to me what the definition of margin in adolesence..."[having enough] sanity left over." I think that was my problem right from the get-go. I was doomed from the minute I started college. It's sad, but true. I didn't have any sanity left because of my marginless lifestyle. Meeting after meeting, rehearsal after rehearsal, project after project, and class after class. It's taken these past 6 months for me to regain those years and years of lost time. Lost time wasted on worrying and panic and hurried tendancies. I still battle anxiety/panic attacks and stress because I'm a perfectionist and I'm a goal-oriented person who wants to make sure her goals are acheived at every nano-second of the day. But because my life-pace slowed down, I HAD TO learn how to slow down my body and mind. This helped reduce my frequent stress attacks and it has been such a blessing to my life.
Pastor Dave's message really hit home last night. First and foremost, he told us to "quite whining and crying and SHUT UP!" We get so wrapped up in what's going on in the natural around us that we completely forget what God is doing SUPERnaturally inside of us. "Change isn't change until you've CHANGED!"Pastor shouted. And if anyone knows me even a little bit, they'd notice that I have changed and that my life is huge evidence of that. Yesterday celebrated 6 months that I have been attending Faith Church. And in those 6 months, I have grown by leaps and bounds. If I could even explain to you how whole I feel, how fulfilled I have become since attending this church, you'd think I won the lottery. And it's funny because I have won the lottery...not in the world's system, but in God's. I learned how to listen to Him and my life is proof of that. In the 6 months I've been there, I have strengthened my relationship with my family, grown deeper in my faith in ways I didn't know were possible, forgiven so many people from my past who've hurt me, let go of terrible habits, overcame the most terrifying, emotionally-filled month of my life, found my purpose in the world, fell in love, got ENGAGED, and truly learned the meaning of obedient tything...which I believe, with all of my heart, lead to my amazing sum of inheritence. And that part is going swimmingly...it's just the matter of a few weeks that I will be completely free of debt to anyone and will be able to pay in FULL my wedding expenses. I will be able to pay CASH for everything...no credit cards! Yes, that came with a price. I had to lose my dad to a terrible act of violence, but as always, God turned something horrible into something wonderful. All in his timing.
So I guess what this entry is about may not fully pertain to you, but I'm sure you can find some meaning in it if you look closely.
SLOW DOWN. Take the time to acknowledge your creator. Do you think you just popped into thin air? Even if you believe in evolution...who do you think sparked anything to happen on this Earth to begin with? You were created by someone bigger than you. Let that sink in for a minute. Even if you aren't religious, know that life is bigger than little old you. Take time to smell the crisp winter air or truly look at your surroundings. Give yourself a break every now and then. You'd be suprised at how well you get to know yourself when you take just a little time for breathing room.
Peace & Love.
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