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. We were designed to live life 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.”
All of us need down time in order to prevent overload. The Biblical word is Sabbath -- it’s a day of rest, a day to recharge our spiritual, emotional and physical batteries. 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."
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.
F.W. Boreham said, “I believe that one of the supreme aims of a man’s life should be to secure a margin. A good life, like a good book, should have a good margin. You need to determine and make a priority when and where you can find time to relax and be refreshed. If you do not take charge of your time it will take charge of you.
Take some time to slow down and come apart lest in the end your life comes apart.