How Do You Create Healthy Margin?

This week I have been blogging about the importance of creating margin in your life.

Margin is not just taking a time out, nor is it just having a day off each week. Margin is far more productive and more intentional than that.

From Wednesdays post we discovered that margin is creating time to plan, mend and reflect. This is time set aside to be intentional about making sure our lives are on tract.

Margin to each of us will look different. For some it will be taking 30 minutes at the beginning of the week to plan the next seven days. For others it will be to journal each day. Others will put different parts of their lives in a box and do not mix their boxes. Only you can know how to create margin in your life because we are all unique and each of us process the events of our lives in different ways.

The last month has been a period without margin for me. In all honesty I just scheduled too much stuff. Appointments ran into each other and I found myself dropping balls that I should not have to drop. The reason I lacked margin was because I didn’t plan my schedule. Sounds simple doesn’t it, but instead of sitting back and spending a few hours going through my schedule I just went from one appointment or engagement to the other.

This is where I just have total admiration for Jesus. What didn’t help Him was the fact that He had so much compassion for others that He wanted to help everyone who came His way. Yet he realized his margin was to go alone and spend time in prayer with the father. Even though the needs of people pressed heavy on Him, even though He was pulled in all directions and there wasn’t enough time on His hands, He still made margin time a priority. Jesus realized that with a time of prayer, all His other time would be productive and effective, without that time he would not have the energy or anointing to tackle life head on.

What do you need to do this week to start to create margin? I’m sure each of us could take a lesson out of the life of Jesus. Rest and prayer would work a treat, I guarantee it!

The Hardest Commandmant To Keep

This past Saturday I made a pledge to myself to not do anything that has any association with what I do for a living. This meant I didn’t blog, didn’t Twitter, didn’t Facebook, didn’t read, didn’t check my email and didn’t even think about work!

The reason I did this was because I have had a couple of intense weeks that have drained me! I realized over the last couple of weeks I have been breaking a commandment of God that had left me tired and worn out! This commandment was to, ‘Keep the Sabbath Holy!’ Growing up I always thought the Sabbath meant going to church, not doing much physical activity, not going shopping and things like that. As I study the bible more and more I realize we have a totally wrong view of the Sabbath. The Sabbath means a period of rest from your labors! Meaning it should be a day set apart where you are not connected to your work life! The more I study this command of God the more I realize God made this day a commandment because us humans find it very hard to rest.

God knew working seven days a week was impossible for us to handle. Even though we may think it is strong and hard working to work seven twelves, in God’s eyes it shows a lack of wisdom. At times we think we can push our bodies, but God knows different. He even went a step further to say, this day shall be kept ‘holy’ (Exodus 20:10), meaning you shall set this day apart above any other.

We need our sabbath. I have heard a lot of people lately say, ‘the sabbath was given for man, not man for the sabbath’. This is so true! We need a day to recharge. It is important, no matter how busy we are to set aside one day out of seven to rest, recharge and step away from what consumes us for the other six days of the week.

As this day is a day to recharge, it is just as important to do things on this day that recharge you! The batteries in your remote may have died, but just taking them out of the remote and giving them ‘rest’ from the remote is no good to the battery or the remote. The battery needs to spend a couple of hours in the charger!

What is your charger? Mine will look very different to yours. This weekend I took my sabbath, I recharged and felt good. The hard thing will be to follow the commandment to do it again in another five days!

Let me know of ways you take a sabbath. What are some of the activites you do to recharge?