Creating Margin

I spoke something in my message last Sunday that like so many things spoken in any given message I did not plan to say. It wasn't in my notes and I didn't think of it ahead of time but it just really fit the need at the time and I spoke it. BTW, if you want to hear the whole message look it up on our church website: www.kenainewlife.org

I spoke briefly about the need to create margin in our lives. This week I have heard from several people who each remarked on that one word I never planned to say. I said it because I am amazed at how so many people live on the razor edge of disaster and that in relatively good times. We used to say "living paycheck to paycheck", but that is long obsolete. So many people live "credit card to credit card" anymore. One hiccup in their world and their whole house of(credit)cards comes crashing down, which it was destined to do anyway.

I was speaking about our response to world disaster like recent events in Haiti, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, New Orleans, Samoa and most recently, Japan. What these events tell us is not that specifically Jesus is coming (don't read me wrong here) just because there was an earthquake but that hiccups or worse, tsunami's happen to us.

Just for the record, download the sermon so you get all of my comments in context.

What we should do in our daily lives is create margin for when the tsunami's of life happen to us, we have some capacity to absorb them and to help others.

Margin applies to every area of our lives. If you live "stressed out" all the time you need to create some emotional margin. If you live credit card to credit card, you need to create financial margin. If you are lonely and isolated, you need to create some relational margin.

Margin is what we prepare in advance of our tsunami's that allows us to survive when a wall of disaster threatens to overwhelm us and the people around us. Thankfully we do not get tsunamis every day of our lives. So if we prepare NOW, ahead of time, when it eventually does come, it doesn't have to devastate us.

Margin is created by living well within your means, by developing deep relationships with other Christians, by keeping your family together in loving relationships, by spending time alone in prayer and scripture with Jesus. I think you get the idea.

I am NOT saying to hoard food, gold, bullets or the like against the end of the world. That all is useless anyway. But have some depth in your life in as many areas as you can identify so that when the time comes, you have the extra capacity to absorb the situation and be a beacon of hope and help to others.