Chances are, that if you’re reading my blog you also like reading books. Have you ever noticed some books are easier to read than others? I’m not only talking about the content, but the text itself. The words, it’s font, spacing, margins, perhaps even the texture of the paper... Some books just seem more inviting and pleasurable to read.
In other books the text is crammed together with little space or margins, and can be very hard and tiring to read. Even a good book, like the pocket travel Bible i own, regardless how good the content is, my eyes become very tired when i read the small print. I think we can all agree it’s easier to read text that is well spaced and has sufficient margins surrounding it.
Do you know each of our lives are like a book, or a letter as Paul describes it in 2 Cor 3:2-3 (read). Each page has text that people can read. How many actually read it i really don’t know, but i suspect it’s more than we realize..
So what does a page of your life look like? I know what mine has looked like. There’s some pages that have been very rough, others seemingly much more positive. I led a full life with business (don’t like that word) and ministry, creating jobs, impacting people’s lives, all good things that i felt God had led me to do. And i could always see many more opportunities and needs. My friends knew my heart, that i wanted to have an impact, wanted to make a difference in people’s lives and furthering God’s kingdom.. So i did more, took on more projects, since i believed i had the capacity, and that i can do all things though Christ who strengthens me! Philippians 4:13.
My page still had room in the margin to write, to create something new. Things were going relatively well and my life couldn’t be more full, and little did i know that i was right! then the storms came, and i had no room or margin to deal with them. I needed to re prioritize, displace or neglect things of less importance. At first it came at the expense of rest and sleep. I slept less, and my mind was still going in my sleep. my vacations were working vacations, with my phone and computer turned on. But everything was important! Yet the storms became worse while i still had all my sails out... I was unprepared... and didn’t have time to batten down,.. i thought surely God would carry me through.
I shared my struggles with good friend of mine, a former missionary to Russia and Estonia. He suggested i take some time off and come to the US for a rest, but how could i in the midst of the storm? I was in the midst of a rescue operation, i needed to resolve many problems, save my businesses and the mission i felt God had called me to.
I had taken on more than he had called me to. I had filled the margins of my life page with many good things and opportunities. And when trouble came i had no margin to deal with it. And they came as weeds, between the text, choking off the good fruit... The weeds paralized me, since there was no room to move. I could no longer accomplish in a week what i once accomplished in a day. battling the weeds i eventually ran out of strength and shut down.
Then my health started failing, and i knew i needed to make some crucial decisions. I cut ties with the vision, the goals i had, and handed business responsibilities to my colleagues, even sold most of my business interest at a great financial loss. My health was more important now. Then i accepted my friend’s invite to take some down time.
I had become quite disillusioned with God. Do His promises not work? What about Philippians 4:13? (quote). I sat quietly in my disillusionment, a little like Job but in my own sackcloth, questioning, searching for some answer (i also had many friends too who gave their flawed Ŕx). But finally God spoke, through a book i read. True, I can do all things through Christ who strengthen’s me, but when did Christ tell me to do all things...?
Yes each of us have different capacities, though we have been called to give our all for the sake of Christ. Yet we need space and margins on each page of our life. We need financial margins, emotional margins, physical margins and time reserves. Without these it can become hard to read even our own lives. We cannot remain continually maxed out. We need rest, (every 7 days, every 7 years). God is the one who has created us with limits, and if we step outside these limits and use up the margins He has designed for us, we do that at our own peril.
So when we look at the book of our lives, what kind of pages do we see? What kind of pages do others see? Looking back in my life book, i see some very ugly and messy pages. Sometimes i’d like to just tear out those pages or rewrite them if i could. But we can’t, and it’s all part of a greater story, HIS story. How He can take and transform, and work everything out for good, craeting an amazing story, of those who have been called according to His purposes (Rom 8:28).
In our lives there’s many pages to be written yet. Let’s keep the margins of our lives clear, so our lives would remain easy for others (and ourselves) to read, and that God could use the testimonies from the pages of our lives, to share His good news more effectively.
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