The importance of margins

Several years ago, our pastor preached a sermon on the importance of margins. He had some helpful ideas, but the most memorable part of the sermon was that he stood right on the edge of the stage with no margin. Making it obvious that standing there without a margin was not safe. The point was dramatically made that without margins, we have no space to deal with the many things that come unexpectedly into our lives.

Establishing margins is counter-cultural to the American way of living. So we need this reflection to help us see the importance of margins, and if anyone especially needs these ideas—I do!

Quotes from thoughtful people about margins

“Margin is the leeway we once had between ourselves and our limits. It is the extra space between the things we must do and our capacity. When we use up all of that space, we are working at full capacity and there is no margin left. Then, when extra demands come or something unexpected arises, we suffer overload.” Let Your Life Speak by Parker J. Palmer

“The dark side of our good intentions to help is that we might also have a bit of a messiah complex. We might relish the opportunity to be the savior of the world, or at least the savior of the person who is sitting in pain in front of us. Or sometimes we are so self-focused that we really cannot let someone else’s experience be their own without somehow making it about us—our story, what we think we know, what we feel we can contribute to their situation.” Life Together in Christ by Ruth Haley Barton

“The number one spiritual sickness of our day is ‘hurry sickness’. We are constantly in a hurry because we have overloaded our schedule. When we lack margin in our lives we become tired and lonely and joyless. We have to begin cutting out activities before we can change the pace of our lives.” The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” Anne Lamott

“Soul friends show hospitality by making space in their lives for others. Soul hosts prepare for their gift of hospitality by cultivating a place of quiet within themselves. When I have begun to be a person with a quiet, still center I can invite others to come and rest there. It is out of this place that soul friends offer their gifts of presence, stillness, safety and love.” Sacred Space by David Brenner

Is what I’m doing really necessary

One of the difficulties I face in creating margins is that I think the things I am doing are essential, so I should not stop doing them – or even pause in doing them. I think of the classic story of Mary and Martha. Mary paused her activity of helping to prepare lunch to sit at the feet of Jesus and to absorb what his presence brought into her life. Martha knew lunch had to be prepared so she was doing the essential work – and was fretting all the time about her sister (and maybe others) who were not helping.

So what if those of us who are always doing essential things could pause to do something that is even more essential—quietly sit at the feet of Jesus? Other writers give us insight into things that can change us so there are margins in our lives that the Lord can fill in ways that renew us and that help others:

‘We can have little Sabbaths in the day: spaces when we can pause, rest, enjoy, recollect, be quiet; savor a sight, taste, sound, thought or person. What are the effects of this sabbatical time in the day? It helps to break the hold of powerful compulsions. These are bound up with some of our strongest urges: to exercise our gifts, to deal with problems, to be productive, to contribute to the community. These are not wrong desires, but because they are so basic and good they can become idols, absorbing all our time and energy. The Sabbath interrupts this idolatry.” The Shape of Living by David Ford

“The Gospels do not proclaim a message of continuous improvement. Jesus brought a message of grace. The kingdom of God does not operate on the currency of the world. In Christ, I am enough, In Christ, we are enough. When we rest in our enough-ness, we can leave space in our lives for whatever God wants to bring to us.” Becoming Enough by Christine Chang in The Covenant Companion

“Arrogance is the opposite of humility. It compels us to treat our limits not as unique openings through which God can reveal his goodness but as diseases to be cured.” Blessings that Make Us Be by Susan Annette Muto

Ideas That Might Help

The surprising thing to me is that even as I have gotten older and I know people expect less from me it has not silenced that inner voice that keeps whispering in my ear telling me I could and should do more. Here are some of the ways friends have helped me to mute that voice:

One of our friends, Richard Foth, gave me this helpful suggestion:

“Instead of endless productivity, we practice a rhythm of work and rest, attending to our need to grow in all the dimensions of being human: heart, soul, mind, and strength. Instead of having our imagination saturated by media, we seek to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. We commit to disengaging from screens of all kinds on a daily, weekly, and annual basis. We establish structured limits for our consumption of entertainment, in quantity, frequency, and moral character.”

Then, some time ago, Kay began to realize that the mandates of Jesus are overwhelming until we realize they are given to the whole church, His body. As an individual, we can’t do all these things – we need to discover our piece of the whole kingdom effort. We need to realize that when another member of the body does prison work, or feeds hungry people, or loves on traumatized people we are part of that because we are linked to that person by prayer. Taking the teachings on the body of Christ seriously and taking the teachings on prayer seriously frees us from the false guilt of thinking we have to do everything. This quote underscores that idea:

“Emotionally healthy people understand the limits God has given them. They joyfully receive the one, two, seven, or ten talents God has so graciously distributed. As a result, they are not frenzied and covetous, trying to live a life God never intended. They are marked by contentment and joy.” The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero with Warren Bird

Our friend, Mary Jane Dellenback, an effective and involved leader in Kingdom matters, helped us learn to deal with the requests from others who ask us to invest time and energy in the things God has given them to do. She said her response to a request that doesn’t seem to be right for her is to say: “I’m sorry. I just can’t do that.” This has been such a gift to us because my tendency is to explain why I am saying “no” and that opens the door for the person to try to work around my reason for saying “no”. The following quote succinctly states the benefit of Mary Jane’s counsel:

“The art of saying ‘no’ sets us free to follow Jesus.” Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson

Another helpful adjustment to my thinking has come from an insight given to me by Steve Savelich. He told me that for many years he was working “for” Christ, but in the last few years he has sought to work “with” Christ. As I’ve pondered this insight, it is changing the tempo of my life. If I am working “for” then there is no ending place to that work—especially if I am hungry for affirmation, as I have been for many years of my life. But if I am working “with” then Jesus sets the pace and it includes the things he did: “Arising early in the morning he went away to a private place and prayed.” And he told us that if we come to him he will give us rest, because in being yoked to him, we discover that the things he gives us to do are both easy and light. I later read this quote:

“At the heart of spiritual leadership is the capacity to notice the activity of God so we can join him in it. Amid the welter of possible distractions, an essential discipline in the welter of possible distractions is to craft times of quiet in which we allow God to show us those things that we might otherwise miss.” Strengthening the Soul of your Leadership by Ruth Haley Barton

Another practice that has helped Kay and me to maintain space for who God wants to bring into our lives is a thoughtful, submitting time at the beginning of each year. This practice of discernment has become more important in our later years as our energy is diminishing faster than our desire to be involved with others. Here is what we do: we write down the major time and people involvements from the previous year. We then prayerfully seek to discern which of these should be continued and which ones are no longer being given to us by God as we move into the next year.

There are always some things that seem it is right to release and we move forward with a greater sense of God’s purposes in the things we are to keep doing.

We sometimes have an idea about some new thing that should be part of our lives, but mostly this discerning process gives us space for what God will bring into our lives in the next year. 

The additional resource we can all have available to us is close companions who know us well and who will speak truth into our lives. They see more quickly and clearly than we do when we have squeezed the margins out of our lives. No need to expand on this idea since whoever is reading this is most likely embracing the truth that God gave us each other to move us forward in our transformation.

Submission to God; submission to Kay; and submission to close companions helps us begin each year with the margins He wants us to have.