“TOO BUSY?”
“The conditions of modern-day living devour margin. If you are homeless, we send you to a shelter. If you are penniless, we offer you food stamps. If you are breathless, we connect you to oxygen. But if you are marginless, we give you yet one more thing to do. Marginless is being thirty minutes late to the doctor’s office because you were twenty minutes late getting out of the bank because you were ten minutes late dropping the kids off at school because the car ran out of gas two blocks from the gas station – and you forgot your wallet. Margin, on the other hand, is having breath left at the top of the staircase, money left at the end of the month, and sanity left at the end of adolescence.”
The above are the opening words of Dr. Richard Swenson’s best seller: “Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives.” Reading Dr. Swenson’s book for the first time is as convicting as a CT scan revealing areas of marginless living within me!
“Marginless is fatigue; margin is energy. Marginless is red ink; margin is black ink. Marginless is hurry; margin is calm. Marginless is anxiety; margin is security. Marginless is culture; margin is counterculture.”
The Psalmist view of margin can perhaps best be articulated by the following stanza:
"BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress (P 46:10-11).”
It’s September, 2014 -- the beginning of a new school year. We are a hurried people: there are so many things to do, so many places to go, so many decisions to be made …. therefore, we MUST WAIT, we MUST BE STILL, we MUST LIVE LIVES OF MARGIN BEFORE THE LORD! AND... PRAY OUR “BUSYNESS” IS FIRST GOD’S BUSINESS.
God is good all the time. Mr. Steve
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