Tonight as I was walking
along the beach watching the sun sink below the horizon I felt God speak to me.
In a gentle whisper he stated, “I’m calling you into a time of more reflection.
I’ve created space for you to just be and I want you to take advantage of that space.”
I love filling my life full; making sure I don’t have too much down time because if I do I might face two very scary things, myself and loneliness.
Our culture thrives on being overscheduled.
The youth of Southern California are scheduled to the max, sports teams, tutoring, private lessons, don’t forget college prep, special SAT classes and AP classes.
I have this theory that most of today’s college freshmen are going to experience a huge crash in 4 years when they graduate.
I wonder if they will feel like the greyhounds do at the end of the race, when the realize that all they have been chasing at breakneck speed is a stuffed bunny, not the real thing.
I feel like I’m going against the grain by protecting some time in my life from schedule.
It’s honestly hard when I talk about having time to do things like pray, reflect, and just be.
When I mention having unscheduled time I often face a subtle air of contempt, and a few sarcastic comments.
I was writing about this harshness I have felt from people with my friend Liz and I loved what she had to say.
She is in a Bible study about margins which is a term for having open space in our lives.
“That is so true about people looking down on you for having margain! We talked about that briefly in small group. It definitely affects how we scheudle things…we feel when asked to do something, we can’t say no if we don’t have a valid reason/something else going on at that time. Andy Stanley said this of how we schedule: people ask us to do things or something comes up and the way we decide if we will do them or not is if the time is free in our schedule! How wrong is that?? We must use better criteria than that to make decisions on what we do with our time–the time God’s
given us! So, recognize our days are numbered by God (Job 14:5, Ps. 90:12). The question often comes up: what would you do if you knew you only had a week to live? Well what about this: what will we do knowing we only have one life to live? I will be praying for you that you will continue to be able to keep margain in your life because when we have less margain, stress levels go up, focus narrows, and relationships suffer! “
I would love to hear what you all think about this topic! Am I the only one who strugges with creating margin? What do you feel like God is calling you to do with your one life? Remember, friends don’t let friends read blogs with out commenting!
