It seems a bit odd for me to be writing about margin in time during a season of relative timelessness–holiday. The 4th of July, and I’m venturing to guess that no one is reading this blog today :-), because you are either sleeping in, camping in the great outdoors, sitting watching the Independence Day fireworks, or consuming hamburgers, baked beans, and potato salad. I am, in fact, doing all of those things as well. But all that to say that it seems an odd time to be discussing our overloaded lives. But I can remember a time, in years past, where I only wish someone had hit me on the head with this book and told me to quit killing myself.
As we’re obviously still talking about margin, it seems natural that margin in time would be scheduling your life in such a way that you have more “free time”, right? But first, I think we have to challenge our attitudes about busyness. Up until almost two years ago, I remember that whenever someone asked the obligatory greeting, “How are you?” I would inevitably respond, “Busy but good.” Always. I remember once stopping and thinking, “Why do I always say that I’m busy?” Because I was. I think that is the response of a lot of people. Busy but good. And at the time, I think that I derived a sort of pride out of being busy. After all, I was juggling full-time work with full-time seminary, commuting 1 1/2 hours each way, staying overnight at my brother’s house one night a week to make it all work. Before that we were both in full-time ministry in Corvallis, burning that candle at both ends and in the middle, literally melting down. In some ways, I thrived on that. I didn’t have kids, I love being organized, and the challenge of it all was exciting. And I realize now that I gained a lot of value and identity in being busy. Why do we, as Americans, place inherent value on being busy?
For example, Henry David Thoreau said, “Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise to noon, rapt in revery.” Because he is famous, and a genious, we think “Wow, that is beautiful. What a great thing.” But what if our neighbors did that? Or your spouse? We’d criticize them as slothful. Swenson says “our modern view of time is to compress it and milk it for every nanosecond of productivity we can get.” I believe that is spot on.
You’d think with all of our time-saving mechanisms that we’d have all sorts of margin. In the early 1930s John Maynard Keynes observed, “When we reach the point when the world produces all teh goods that it needs in two days, as it inevitably will…we must turn our attention to the great problem of what to do with our leisure.” Sorry, John, you missed the boat on that one. In fact, Swenson observes that “the amount of genuine leisure available in a society is generally in inverse proportion to the amount of labor-saving machinery it employs.” Ha! Can you believe it? We have bread machines and dishwashers and automatic sprinkler systems, and yet we have less time than those in Third World countries who spend evenings sittingon their front porches bouncing babies on their knees.
In this category of margin would be the introduction of Sabbath rest. The Sabbath is not an New Testament requirement, but I believe it is wisdom for man to spent 1/7 of his week in rest, true rest. This doesn’t mean we set rules about not lifting certain weights and it doesn’t mean it has to be on a certain day (pastors can’t rest on Sundays!). But it does mean that we choose to LiveDifferent. We choose to ignore the gnawing culture need to constantly get ahead, and we choose instead to take ourselves out of the ballgame, just long enough to breathe, refresh, turn our eyes to God, and listen to His still small voice. I am NOT promoting greater time management here. I’m not saying let’s be more efficient so that we can get more done. I’m saying, to heck with it–let’s get less done and worship God more and recognize that our value is not based on what we do. Yes, let’s labor for the gospel, let’s spend ourselves for Christ, but as one smart farmer said, “I cannot get done in seven days what I can get done in six.” When we are truly aiming to work for God, His math works it all out. Here are some ideas, for building better margin into our lives in the area of time.
1. Turn off the TV. (I know, i’m always bashing TV). Turn off all electronic mediums, just for one day (I’m a coward here, I feel like I can’t live without my laptop.) My sister-in-law wrote a neat blog about mental detox week…consider something like this. YOu’ll be surprised how much time you have.
2. Practice Simplicity and Contentment: “With fewer possessions, we do not have as many things to take care of. With a simpler wardrobe, our choice of what to wear each morning becomes less time-consuming. With a smaller estate, there will be less debt bondage to our work schedule. Everything we own owns us. We must maintain it, paint it, play with it, build space in our house to put it, and then work to pay it off. Perhaps if we had fewer things we might have more time…”
3. Be Unavailable. We are now capable of being reached at all times. I don’t care what the Blackberry ads tell you, they do not free you up to spend time with your family. Being in bondange to your cell phone, home phone, email, Blackberry, whatever, can be incredibly draining. We must have margin and boundaries. Create some.
4. Think Long-Term. Consider the Tyrrany of the Urgent. It drains us of energy, time, and resources. Think long term and plan your life thoughtfully, according to long term plans. Yes, chaos happens. Tonight Dutch pooped up his back and then rubbed his back against the couch. 🙂 Stuff happens, and we adjust. But think long-term rather than simply reacting to each moment. This helps us better control our time.
5. Get Less Done but do the Right Things. “All activities need to be assessed as to their spiritual authenticity…we must have God-centered criteria with which to judge all activities.” I always remind myself, God will allot me time for all the activities which He has ordained for me to do. Consider and perhaps cut back.
6. Be Available. Pastor Bruce Larson says, “It is possible that the most important things God has for me on any given day is not even on my agenda.” Have I created enough of a margin, white space, in my life, that when Divine interruptions come I am able to embrace them as God’s scheduled work for me?
7. Kari’s extra: I think that the best gift you can give your kids is time. I know many couples schedule their lives FULL of activities for the kids–classes, swim lessons, parties, trips, vacations, but what the kids really want is for parents to sit down, get out the Legos and just play. Or read. Or talk. Or have a tea-party. Kids just want our time, unhurried, with no agenda. I really believe that kids in America are absolutely starving for unstructured time with their parents. And yet it’s so hard, as parents, to lay aside the busyness and the “to dos” and sit with our kids in the grass and watch bugs. Lord help me do more of that.
So this week let’s LiveDifferent by creating margin in our time. Waste some time with God this week. Stand in line and refuse to look at your watch. Let other people go ahead of you in traffic. Schedule a free hour and do nothing. Sit with your kids and read stories. Ask God to give you a peaceful, unhurried pace in your service for Him. And have a fabulous holiday weekend. Enjoy your time.