Think about your week. Do you spend your days rushing from one activity or event to another? Is your schedule so full that a small, unexpected “hiccup” in the day feels like a calamity? This may be a sign that you could use a little more margin in your life. Margin is the space we leave in our day or week for some wiggle room, for do-overs, for unplanned interruptions and creative thinking. For instance:
When you’re operating at 80% capacity and your supervisor surprises you with a sudden and unexpected assignment, no problem. You’ve built some margin into your week. Your response: “You bet! My pleasure.”
When you’re operating at 95% capacity and your supervisor gives you a last-minute assignment, you feel some anxiety and even a little irritation, but you reckon you can complete the task if you pull an all-nighter.
When you’re operating at 120% capacity and your supervisor asks you to prepare a few words for the Monday morning office birthday celebration, your entire day’s schedule falls apart like a line of dominoes. You wind up in your office, binge-eating Girl Scout cookies. (But maybe that's just me.)
We all have finite capacities. And as a friend and former colleague often reminds me: “Finitude is not a sin!”
Even Jesus had his limits. As someone who was not only fully divine but also fully human, Jesus had to grapple with the issue of margin, too. And he did so, as he did all things, with wisdom and self-understanding. In the Gospels we see him fully engaged with his world. We see him teaching, healing, confronting, preaching, storytelling, etc. And yet, again and again we also see him pausing and stepping away: out under the stars in the desert, or among the flowers in a garden, or asleep in the back of a boat. Once, in the midst of a particularly demanding day—so demanding, in fact, that he and the disciples didn’t even have time to grab a meal—we hear him say: “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” (Mk. 6:30-32)
I can imagine Jesus giving a thumbs-up to some wise words by physician Richard Swenson. In his book, Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives, Swenson describes margin this way:
“Margin is the space between our load and our limits. It is the amount allowed beyond that which is needed. It is something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations. Margin is the gap between rest and exhaustion, the space between breathing freely and suffocating.
Margin is the opposite of overload. If we are overloaded we have no margin. Most people are not quite sure when they pass from margin to overload. Threshold points are not easily measurable and are also different for different people in different circumstances. We don’t want to be under-achievers (heaven forbid!), so we fill our schedules uncritically. Options are as attractive as they are numerous, and we overbook.
If we were equipped with a flashing light to indicate ‘100 percent full,’ we could better gauge our capacities. But we don’t have such an indicator light, and we don’t know when we have overextended until we feel the pain. As a result, many people commit to a 120 percent life and wonder why the burden feels so heavy. It is rare to see a life prescheduled to only 80 percent, leaving a margin for responding to the unexpected that God sends our way.”
Margin isn’t something that just happens. We have to create it, reserve it.
After several decades of pastoral ministry, I still work at creating healthy margin. I try not to be rigid and inflexible when it comes to my weekly schedule. My minutes and hours and days are held in God’s hands. Even so, here is a peek at the general rhythm of my week:
Sunday is my favorite day of the week. I get up very early on Sundays for prayer, silence and putting final touches on the sermon. Sunday afternoons are usually for rest and family time.
Monday is a writing day and a “big-picture thinking” day. I begin working on the following Sunday’s sermon and other writing assignments. I think through agendas for weekly meetings with staff and lay teams.
Tuesday and Wednesday are devoted mostly to meetings with staff and lay leaders, appointments and pastoral visits. Every Wednesday afternoon I plan worship with Lon.
Thursday is my sabbath day. Ideally, this day is free from meetings, email or anything work-related so that I can breathe, rest, create and enjoy nature and/or DC sites with my family (Tim is also usually off on Thursdays).
Friday is my main sermon-prep day and I try to go “down the rabbit hole” in order to concentrate, ponder and pray. On Friday I also plan for the following week.Saturday (when I don’t have church commitments) is for personal chores, relaxing and finishing Sunday’s sermon.
I invite you to spend some time imagining your “ideal week”. What would you include? What might you need to remove in order to strike a better balance? May you feel God’s deep peace, strength and rest this very week.
Peace and grace,
