Living with "Margin"

There was a time when we had time to visit a neighbor, take time to sit and read a newspaper, call someone just to see how their were doing.  Today we have gotten in this mode of always being busy, needing to fill up every bit of time with something.

Toby talked about this a couple of weeks ago and I think it is so important to have margin in your life, to stop and smell the roses.  Life goes by quickly and we aren't stopping to enjoy it.  By living this way we aren't "available" when He calls us to serve Him or others.  We have crammed ourselves to the hilt with activities, need for information about our friends and other people, we move on average every 4-7 years, so we are constantly meeting new people that we need to keep in touch with, we travel miles from where we live to work with people that we only see at work, and stop where we don't know anyone, we live in a public yet secluded life.  It is not wonder that we have a majority of the population on antidepressants.

We need to get back to a life style that brings everyone back to family, community (local), accountability to those around us.  To live in a community where we live and work and raise our families.  Where we teach our kids about being self-reliant and dependent on God and those around us.  Self-reliant isn't about doing everything yourself, its about have your own opinion, understanding the world enough to vote intelligently and carry on a logical conversation using critical thinking verses what others are pumping into our minds...

We live in a community, because God created us to live within a community, a community of believers, and people that support us.  Our marriage is a reflection of our relationship with God and God ordains this, this unit of two people is the smallest group of community.  As Francis Chan mentions in his book "Forever You and Me", marriage is Gods smallest battle unit.  It is a starting point for building community in our lives, we depend on our spouse and we do things with them within our community.  We experience life with them.  This is God's way of providing another person to walk through life with.

Not sure how we get back to this type of life where others matter enough to allow us to stop and take the time to help others in need.  If we don't do this ourselves it will be impressed upon us through other avenues, that will eventually tip the teeter totter in the other direction, and the outcome will more extreme then we can envision.  May we come back to this way of life before it is impressed on us...