Expect More from Your Margins

I love a good schedule.

Blocking my time and planning my tasks is a tool that can help me stay organized and grounded. I know where I need to be and when, and I do the backward math and prepare accordingly. I even try to plan out my rest. I’ve blocked off certain times of day for spiritual disciplines like Bible reading. I’ve learned to prepare in prayer, too. 

And yet…

I’ve inadvertently planned out the margins in my day. I’ve filled those margins with tasks, something productive people tend to do. But for the Christian, margins are more than bonus time to get more done. Margin gives space to hear God speak.

As I’ve jumped from one task to the next, as if my life’s a constant emergency, I’ve been sensing the Spirit’s whisper: This is not what I have for you.

There is a Westminster catechism that asks the question: What is the chief end of man? The answer being “to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever”. 

To enjoy God. If I’m honest, I spend little time enjoying God. I enjoy his gifts. I’m thankful for the people and places he’s brought me. I spend time in the Word and in prayer. But enjoying Him? I can only point to one time in my week where I do this, and it’s on a Sunday morning in corporate worship with the people of God. Or, when that sweet group meets in my living room with open Bibles on a Tuesday evening.

To enjoy God. As I’ve been considering what it means to enjoy God, I look to the moments in my day where this can even be possible. The problem is, there aren’t many. Every minute, every moment between the minutes, is planned and filled with one or eight different things I want (or need) to accomplish. 

The Bible asks us to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Abiding in Christ means to have an ongoing relationship with God, living by the spirit, and walking in obedience to his ways (1 John 2:6). But if I stop to look at the motivations of my heart in some moments of prayer, it’s not to see more of God, but to experience more of his hand. I ask for help, wisdom, peace—all good things, but still not exactly enjoying God for himself.

Much of life hinges on perspective. Everything earthbound screams self focus. Every reflective surface beckons my attention; every ding interrupts my focus; every interaction is a one-upping exercise. I think that deeper down, it’s all an issue of identity—of belonging. Who am I? “Why” am I?

This will bring us back to Genesis. How poignant our origin story is to the fruitfulness of our continual existence. Created by God, for God; on purpose, for his purpose. 

I really hate rising early to do anything, but particularly struggle with reading the Word in those wee hours. My eyes are blurry, my mind foggy, the room cold and dark. But I can appreciate why the saints before me and beside me—even Jesus while with us on earth—rose early to be with the Lord. Beginning our day in remembrance of the master of our identity, the core of life itself, is a rooting our restless hearts need before embarking into the wilds of society and our sin. 

Time with God cannot be boxed away into a block of time; to do so would be to count him among these other things, as if they can even compare to his worth. God can’t be just another part of our schedule—God deserves our entire agenda. To fellowship with the mighty God, to abide, to dwell, to enjoy him will take more than a Bible reading plan and bedtime prayer (although it’s a good place to start). It takes a devoted life, a grateful heart, a humble posture, an admittance of dependance that without him, there would be no self at all. 

To enjoy God requires a daily reverence of him.

Reading in the book of Leviticus has brought me a fresh perspective on the luminous glory of God and how opposite we are. He is forever; we are finite. He is perfect; we are flawed. He is pure; we are polluted.

Because of our innate opposition to him, so much had to be done in order for God to dwell with man. He gave detailed instructions on the construction of his dwelling place, because he is worthy. He specified the cleansing process for the people to address the sin that would offend his presence, because he is holy. There were severe costs to not taking his words and righteousness seriously, because he is just. He is so far above us, and yet this was his heart’s desire: to call a people his own and bless all nations through the one. Through the nation of Israel Jesus Christ came, the salvation of the world (Galatians 3:8-9).

In the time after the exodus from Egypt, God’s purposes were thwarted at almost every turn. The Israelites, the neighbouring people, even his messenger Moses got in the way. Not a single one of them could perfectly obey Him. And why? They thought they knew better. An ignorance of their ignorance. Classic human behaviour.

Well, my shared history is showing. My google calendar and I think we know better than God about how to divide my time. Stuffing the hours and minimizing my margins has robbed me of my greatest purpose of enjoying God. There are limits on my intelligence, strength, capacity, time, and existence. Our God, who abides above time and all limits, has made it so, and it is all good because he made it. Good is in his character.

I enjoy God by spending less time on enjoying myself. It means bringing back the margins to simply be in His presence. No podcasts, no planning. Allowing my thoughts to focus on God, in gratitude, prayer, and praise. Being with him. Then discovering that there’s no other place I’d rather be.

I feel tired. I praise you, Father, for your mercies that are new every morning. I thank you for my body’s signs that tell me when to stop. I can stop working because you never do.

I feel overwhelmed. I praise you, God, for your omniscience and omnipotence. Because you hold it all together, I don’t have to. I can trust you for the outcome.

I feel afraid. I worship you, Almighty, because there is nothing and no one who compares to your power and worth. There is no other God; you have no rivals. And you promise to care for me. If you are for me, who can stand against me?

Margins are for more. More reflection. More praise. More adoration of God’s majesty. More focus off our little kingdoms as we remember where we came from—and where we’re going. Heaven isn’t filled with our portfolios; it is filled with His praises. God is the only Holy One, forever exalted, and it is a miracle that we should be counted among his people given the privilege to enjoy him forever. 

Let’s not squander this gift, but instead lift our eyes to the Lord, whether in the valley, on the mountain top, or in the margins that carry us from one moment to the next. 

May our margins carry us to Christ.

May our forever start now.