Breathing Room

A majority of Americans, especially those of us who are Christians, are living life, but we are just surviving, not thriving. The definition of thrive means to grow vigorously, to gain wealth, prosperity and possession; to reach a goal or a destination in spite of circumstances. Yet we are living pay check to pay check, and are barely making it. We are not really able to pursue our dreams or our kingdom purposes because we do not have the resources to do anything beyond pay our bills to make sure that are personal hierarchy of needs is met. We are locked into a barely making it existence because we need the resources that we generate to survive because of the life style we have created.

Financial stress is completely normal in our culture today. We see people living under the yoke of this responsibility every day. People who are living pay check to pay check, making normal monthly payments, paying off debt, who are trapped by worry, anxiety and fear.

As a result of living beyond our means tension in our relationships and marital discord has also become normal. It is better to live in a home that is paid for with peace in your marriage than to live in a big place, and about to get a divorce because you cannot control the impulse to keep spending on whatever is the next big thing. Our societal norms and what culture has dictated are not working. We need to transition in our thinking; the Israelites’ sojourn into Egypt is a great example of what God wants to do for us. In Psalm 105:37 we are reminded that God brought them out with silver and gold and there was not one feeble among all their tribe. The key is that God brought them out. God is about to bring His people out of financial despair. Gods’ plan for them, and for us, is not to survive but thrive.

His plan was for them to prosper and thrive in Egypt. They were to be examples of His goodness and mercy. However, they, just like many of us, were absorbed into the culture and barely survived. God is ready to deliver us out of spiritual Egypt and take us forward to financial freedom with more money than month, with a bit extra left over.

A working definition of extra is the amount available beyond what is necessary. It’s the difference between what you have and what you need. So financially we could say this, if you earn $3,000.00 in US currency a month and you spend $2,500.00 you have $500.00 beyond what you have spent. If you earn $3000.00 and you spend $3,000.00 you have zero left to create a bit of breathing room.

If you earn $3,000.00 and you spend $3,500 is another whole issue. Financial breathing room is what is available beyond what is necessary. What can this kind of freedom look like financially in our everyday lives? It is having money left over at the end of the month. It may be hard to believe but it is possible and it is a good goal to have.

Extra money at the end of the month means that you will have money available to help somebody in need. It means having money to give without feeling stressed about it. It could be having money available to do something you enjoy; it could be having money available to spend time doing something special with your family. With a bit more financial freedom perhaps you could hire someone to help you in your house or with your lawn.

That kind of freedom gives us the ability to be financially at rest and not be anxious, or worried, living in fear that we are on the verge of losing everything. Most people do not have that kind of security. But God wants us to have financial security. Proverbs 21:20 is a great verse to commit to memory, "In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has." In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all that he has. We could say it like this, a foolish person lives pay check to pay check and devours all that he has.

The house of the wealthy is financial freedom. It is not the two income household, or the six figured income that is wise, it is in the house of the wise that there is plenty. God has financial wisdom for us if we would just grab hold of His principles and begin to live our lives in financial liberty. When we begin to walk as God wants us to walk according to Psalm 84:11 there is no good thing He withholds from those who walk uprightly. God is wisdom and when we embrace His wisdom it will radically change our lives.

In 1Timothy 6:6-10 we see these two different kinds of families, one wise and one foolish: "Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

Godliness with contentment is great gain for we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. Paul is talking about the spirit of contentment. Godliness with contentment is great gain. Paul said if we can just live contentedly in God He can, and will do, powerful things in our lives. God has plans for us that we might have life and have it more abundantly. He is not trying to keep us under His thumb, threatening us if we get off track. The narrow way to God is not about sin, the narrow way is about wisdom.

Luke 6:48 tells us what wisdom looks like, "He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock." A wise man hears God, acts upon what he hears and builds his house on a rock. When the storms and winds blow his house will not be moved.

In Matthew 25: 1-10 we see the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, "Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept.

"And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming go out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut." A wise virgin has plenty of oil to keep their lamps shining brighter and brighter.

Proverbs 1: 1-7 tells us that wisdom cries out for us, " To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity; to give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion, a wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel, to understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and their riddles, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction."

Wisdom is better than rubies, gold or silver. God talks so much about foolishness versus wisdom. A foolish man doesn’t hear or obey God. There is such an emphasis on sin in the church but God spoke more often about obtaining wisdom that He did about sin. There is so much good counsel in the Word of God to avoid foolishness and to seek wisdom. Yet we see people everyday who live foolishly. I Timothy 6:10 describes what happens, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

Creating Margin:Scheduling Our Time

We really need margin in our lives to become aligned with the will of God. He has some important things for us to accomplish during our lives and He also has a purposed way for us to do them but culture keeps pulling us in another direction. The definition of margin is, “the amount available beyond what is necessary.” In other words it is the difference in what you have and what you need. That is called margin. When we plan and schedule our daily lives margin is having more than enough time. Enough time would be having time to listen to your children without continuing to think about work. Margin, or extra time, would make room for us to be interrupted and be happy about it. Margin would be having time to rest, relax and reflect.

Margin is about having time with people that we love and not always fighting because there is never time to connect intimately. Margin is about having plenty of time with the Creator and Sustainer of this Universe, God. Margin for most of us is the thing we simply do not have. I believe God has given me a mandate to help us create margin in the major areas of our lives. All of us would like to have a bit more time for ourselves to enjoy extra time, more time to spend with people we love, and more time to spend with God. I know I would like to have more time to spend with God and those I love.

We would all be blessed with more time, when we see how important time is, but the truth is even if all of sudden God said, “Poof,” and there were twenty five hours in the day we would probably still not have enough time. It is unlikely that most of us would actually spend that time on important things. The reality is that culture has a way of overwhelming whatever margin we have. The last time you had an unexpected day off chances are pretty good that you did not spend extra time with God. Chances are also pretty good that you did not spend time with your loved one and chances are pretty good that what you did was run errands, caught up on chores, tried to get ahead at work and caught up on some emails. Chances are there are many things that felt urgent and that overwhelmed you. You missed another opportunity to enjoy what was truly important in your life.

Culture is like this: If you have ever driven a car and the tires are out of alignment as you keep driving the car keeps pulling one way. Culture is continually trying to pull us off the center as we are going down the road of life. Ephesians 5: 15-17 is a very interesting scripture and tells us this, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” As we look into effectively scheduling margin in our lives we need to begin to ask a different question than we normally ask. We need to be wise and understand what the Lord’s will is when we start scheduling our lives. Perhaps we should look at how we plan things a bit differently.

If the Word directs us to walk wisely then maybe we should ask different questions. When we schedule where we are going and who we are seeing and what we are doing our first question should be, “Is that a wise decision?” A good example of the question to ask is this, “Is it wise to spend extra time doing this considering that I have teenagers at home who only have a little bit more time in my house before they go off into the college world, or would it be wiser for me to spend time with them right now than do something else?”

Start asking, “Is this wise, since I’ve really been so busy that I’ve not had time to do a Second Saturday serve, I’ve not had time to do a life group, I’ve not had time to do some things that are important, so is it wise?” Tell yourself, “Maybe I should put something important in that time slot instead of saying yes to every request. You may be responding with, “I’ll be there,” and even though it’s not wrong, as a matter of fact it may be and probably is something good but, is it wise? Is it wise you’ve been so busy at work you’ve not had quality time to spend with your family?

It is a much better question to ask ourselves when scheduling time, is it wise? What really struck me is that we only have so many days. Everybody is going to die. The last time I checked the mortality rate was 100%. It is in all our destinies to die yet most of us live like we are going to live in these natural bodies forever. Psalm 90: 10-12 in the NIV version tells us this, “All our days may come to seventy years or eighty if strength endures.” God’s Word tells us we may live to seventy years of age, and by strength, to eighty. If we live a normal, healthy life, without catastrophe or illness we should make it to seventy and by strength to eighty and of course there are some we know that surpass eighty but most of us live to around seventy or eighty. Thank God for eternal life but my point is that as we live out our allotted days God wants us to number them and realize that every day is important. We must make wise decisions when planning and scheduling our lives because you just have a few of them.

What struck me is how much time we spend on things we don’t even give a second thought. In a life time you will spend six months at traffic lights waiting for them to change, you will spend one year of your life looking for misplaced items, you will spend eight months opening junk mail, you will spend two years returning phone calls and leaving messages, you will spend five years waiting in lines, and you will spend three years of your life in meetings.

The list goes on and on and does not even include sleeping. You will spend roughly one third of your life sleeping which by the way, if you live to be seventy-five comes to twenty-five years. There’s not a lot of time to do everything God has asked us to do so we really need to use our time wisely.

So, how do we use our time wisely? I have one key here, learn to say NO. That is very difficult for me and it is going to be difficult for you. What is wild is that it is not just that we have to say no to things, we have to say no to good things and that is what makes it difficult. We have to learn to say no to good things to make room for important things. Here is another really simple key to creating extra time that you can devote to doing something important. You can say no to this activity and that will buy extra time and create margin. The average American watches television twenty eight hours a week. Twenty eight hours a week is an average of four hours a day that the average American watches television. Say no to sitting in front of the television and yes to spending quality time playing board games, laughing, sharing God’s Word and being together. Turn the TV off and catch up on some emails so you won’t have to take time away from them on Saturday when you want to spend time with your family.

You can recreate your own lists of things to create margin. To create margin in our lives there are good things we are going to have to say no to.

We must learn to have the courage and faith to say no to many good things so that we can say yes best things. Good things become the enemy of best things. That is why we must live carefully, not as unwise, but wise people. God has a lot to say about prioritizing time. Matthew 6:33 is all about us living successfully in this life because of God’s purposes and plans, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Seek first the kingdom of God, the kingdom in his righteousness, and all these will be added to you as well. Sometimes I get so busy with good things that I don’t seek the best, His kingdom and His righteousness.

When I get busy with other things my life gets off kilter. When we keep our priorities right with God, He will order our days. Number one, the first thing we should prioritize in our life is our intimate time with God because it is the most important thing we can do. When we daily align our hearts with God’s Word, and His presence, we position ourselves to get more done with the time we

have and create margin to enjoy this life we are living.

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