Maintaining life's margin

You need some margin in your life.

That is the message I regularly hear. If you regularly run late and forget essentials, you may also need some margin.

Every kindergartener knows margins are the lines you color within. Rewards are then distributed for the ability to stay within the margins. However, adults are encouraged to ignore the margins producing a populace rich with frustration, burnout, and exhaustion.

The Bible describes creating margins. In the book of Leviticus you'll some principles to create margins in your life. We read;

"When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 23:22.)

First, the instruction in Leviticus to leave the edges prompts the harvester to create a social welfare system and inspire industrial entrepreneurship. Margins then create the prompts and space to remind yourself that life is not about you only.

Living absent of margin, you will feel you do not have the time to care for others. Compassion is reduced to giving a monetary donation so others can care for the less fortunate. But when you create margins in your schedule and finances, you create the space to give both resources and yourself to worthy causes.

Secondly, margins are gasoline to the spark of faith. The harvester could collect all they planted to prepare for the rainy day. But when you create margin, you remind yourself that God cares for you more than you do. You do not have to hoard everything by building bigger barns, but you can trust that what has been gathered will be sufficient. You can embrace the role of the harvester leaving margin in the field growing your faith.

You cannot do everything. Nor should you.

Margins not only guard your schedule but connect you to others. Embracing your limits puts you in a position to discover others who can do what you cannot. You then move from isolation to a community member with something to offer no one else can, in relation to others who do the same.

If you regularly run late, forget essential matters, and wish to do something about that issue, start addressing those issues by creating margins in your life.