Today’s Faith Workout was written by Kelly Barcol, our Chaplain Role Champion, Owner of CrossFit Winnersville, and Lead Pastor at Winnersville Community Center.
READ:
Job 3:26, Psalm 119:96, & Job 14:5
REFLECT:
Most of us overload our lives past our limits. How many of you feel like Job did in Job 3:26 “I have no peace. I have no quiet. I have no rest and trouble keeps coming.” (GW)
Some of the common areas we experience overload in life are we have too much activity in our lives, too many choices, too much work, too much debt, too much information, and too many negative people.
The solution is to put some margin into your life. Margin is the space between my load and my limit.
Let’s start with some benefits of living a life of margin. Here are four quick benefits that come into our life and begin to build some space between my load and my limits. What happens when I build in a little margin?
- I’ve got more peace of mind in my life. I’m not hurrying and worrying all the time. I have time to stop, to think, to relax, to enjoy, to smell the roses.
- Better health. Why do so many people wait until their health fails until they make this decision? When you have margin in your life you are healthier physically and emotionally.
- Stronger relationships. The truth is relationships take time and margin provides the time to sit and talk. It provides the time to listen, the time to comfort someone and the time to be comforted.
- It makes you available for God to use. When you’re overloaded, when you’ve got too much to do, you can only think of yourself. God is more interested in your availability than He is in you abilities.
Here is an important first step to begin building margin in our lives.
ACCEPT MY HUMAN LIMITATIONS
Psalm 119:96 “I have learned that everything has limits.” (GN) We have to remember that we are only human. We have to remember that there are limitations in our lives that God intentionally put there.
You have physical limits. . . . There are limits to positive thinking. You and I can only deadlift, what we can deadlift:-)
You also have emotional limitations. These are much harder for us to judge in our own lives.
Many of you have never drawn the line emotionally. You think you can keep on handling more and more stress, more and more problems and you don’t need any downtime, you don’t need any margin. You’re wrong!
And of course you have time limits. . .
Job 14:5 “Our time is limited. You, God, have given us only so many months to live and have set limits we cannot go beyond.” (NCV) Highlight “we cannot go beyond”. These are just a few of our human limitations.
You’re thinking, “It would really be nice if God would warn me when I’m reaching my limit…
God has given you a warning light. It’s called pain. It’s called fatigue. It’s called stress. It’s called loss of joy. It’s called irritability. When you’re irritable you’re on overload. You have exceeded a limit – a physical, mental, spiritual, some kind of an emotional limit in your life and you’re on overload. And you’ve gotten irritable.
So the starting points for building margin is to realize you need it because you have limits.
DISCUSS/JOURNAL QUESTIONS:
- In what area of your life do you most commonly exceed your limit or most often come close to exceeding your limit?
- What decisions can you make today to begin building margin in this area of your life? Are there any “GOOD” things you need to say no to or stop doing so you can create space between your load and your limits?
SKILL WORK:
- In what way can you depend more on God to prevent overload in your life? List a couple tangible things you will begin being intentional about over the next couple weeks.
Wow! Yes! I needed this! “Irritable”. That is the exact term I used to describe myself this week. I didn’t know why. But I now see that God is telling me I have hit my limit & it all makes so much sense now!
I needed this today…. I spent the day doing not much. I felt so GUILTY for just resting, not scouring my to do lists, and being what I might even call lazy. In my heart, I knew I needed to… This teaching has reframed it for me – I was creating margin! I was hitting a limit and this was God’s bumper guard on my bowling lane. AND I shouldn’t feel guilty for putting the bumpers up today. Thank you!
Absolutely amazing blog post, and it came just at the right time for me! Have been doing comp training for about 8 weeks and I can just feel the irritability creeping up on me in other areas of my life. It’s a great call out that it’s the emotional limitations that we so often ignore. Thanks very much for the wisdom!
Just shared this with my wife. We will work to build more margin in our lives!
The wanting light section…. on point
Thank you for writing this. I have been feeling this way for to long and spinning my wheels. I know that I need more time with God but have felt stressed with an infant and 2 year old. I’m trying to get my balance back.
I’m not sure how many more signs I need in my life before I realize God is flashing the warning lights. This is confirmation of what I’ve been internally wrestling with for months. Feeling spread thin, not good at anything, wanting to please others all the time, wanting to help others all the time, stressed, deadlines, overtime, money. But we can’t pout out of an empty cup! I allow myself to be too busy. Even if it’s with good things! I’ve allowed it to shift my priorities from pleasing God to pleasing man. Today I’m going to spend quality time talking with my husband and time in prayer together.
True words! Am I allowed to use that as a prayer at a youthclub in my church? Blessings from Germany!
I am going through that overload period like so many of y’all out there. Working hard and doing good things, but I could just hear God saying “let it go” “lay down what’s good and find what’s best” He will let us toil for a time, but it’s amazing how the only true contentment I find is sitting at his feet.