Richard Swenson Margin Quotes

We do not rest because our work is done; we rest because God commanded it and created us to have a need for it."-

All people have within their grasp much to be thankful for. Gratitude fills. Grumbling drains. The choice is ours.

We have more 'things per person' than any other nation in history. Closets are full, storage space is used up, and cars can't fit into garages. Having first imprisoned us with debt. Possessions then take over our houses and occupy our time. This begins to sound like an invasion. Everything I own owns me. Why would I want more?

Extroverts usually don't understand introverts and try to push them into situations where they simply don't wish to be.

Marginless is the disease of the new millennium; margin is its cure.

We must have some room to breathe. We need freedom to think and permission to heal. Our relationships are being starved to death by velocity. No one has the time to listen, let alone love. Our children lay wounded on the ground, run over by our high-speed good intentions. Is God now pro-exhaustion? Doesn’t He lead people beside the still waters anymore? Who plundered those wide-open spaces of the past, and how can we get them back? There are no fallow lands for our emotions to lie down and rest in.

Love is the only medicine I know of which, when used according to directions, heals completely yet takes one's life away.

While the progress we boast of is found within the material and cognitive environments, most of the pain we suffer is found within the social, emotional, and spiritual.

If progress is so wonderful, why do we drink and drug to forget our problems? Why are we divorcing and suing at such rates? Why are people killing themselves-and others-in such numbers?

The Sabbath rest is a rest He calls us to, but the surrendered rest He offers to us. The Sabbath rest we enter out of obedience; the surrendered rest we enter out of our need. The Sabbath rest arises from the good and perfect law of God; the surrendered rest arises from the good and perfect grace of God. The Sabbath rest is remembrance; the surrendered rest is meekness. Both provide soothing, God-ordained healing.

The answer lies in meekness. In this passage, Christ calls Himself “gentle and humble”—meek. He came not to judge but to die. He came not to shout and defend the honor of the Father but to die. He came not to fight but to die. No persecution could disturb Him for He came to suffer. Yet all the time He was suffering, He knew He was winning. We, too, can suffer and win. We can live with love even when others hate—all the time knowing that love wins. We can respond with grace when others fight, knowing that grace wins. When we come to Him and surrender, accepting His yoke, we accept full vulnerability to the onslaught of the world. Yet, at the same time, we are assured that nothing can separate us from the victorious love of Christ. This rest is a self-weakening unto God-strength. It is a self-emptying unto God-fullness. It is the rest of full surrender.

Sleep might serve as another example. We all need sleep. But how much? Those who regard the need for sleep as a sign of weakness might try to push the limit and see how few hours they can get along on.

Not all the words that were ever uttered are worth weighing on golden scales. NORWEGIAN PROVERB

We once again practice economics "as if people mattered." We once again agree that things do not own us and are not even very important. We once again assert that jobs are only jobs, that cars are only organized piles of metal, that houses will one day fall down-hut that people are important beyond description.

It is important to understand our emotional reserves. It is important to understand how much we have at the beginning of each day and which influences drain our emotions dry or recharge our batteries. It is important to learn what our limits are, and not to make further withdrawals if we are already maximally depleted. And it is important to respect these limits in others.

when life is over and we receive our report card, it will have only one category—relationship. There will be three lines: • How did we relate to God? • How did we relate to ourselves? • How did we relate to others?

Christ laid out for us the greatest imperative of eternity: to love God, our neighbor, and our self. This commandment must be the first guideline for all of life’s decisions and actions. Nothing is to come before it.

Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

He looked on what He had made and delighted in it, and He has commanded us to do the same.

just as we need to eat and sleep, so we also need to breathe.

It is hard to justify our inner pains when we don’t have a vocabulary to use.

Contentment is willing to lend support to margin.

So are simplicity, balance, and rest.

Godliness is an attitude whereby what we want is to please God.

Contentment, explains J. I. Packer, “is essentially a matter of accepting from God’s hand what He sends because we know that He is good and therefore it is good.

The more we choose contentment, the more God sets us free. The more He sets us free, the more we choose contentment.

Contentment isn’t denying one’s feelings about unhappiness, but instead a freedom from being controlled by those feelings.

Each of us needs to seek his or her own level of involvement and not let the standard be mandated by the often exorbitant expectations of others. Some around us who are much more involved than we are may not understand why we choose to hold back. Others might be much less involved than we are—we assume they don’t care. We must understand that everyone has a different tolerance for overload and a different threshold level when breakdown begins to occur. It is important for us to set people free to seek their own level.

When given

As the number of choices grows further,” writes sociology professor Barry Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice,“the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.

a third dynamic that inflicts overload on many unwilling victims is “follow the leader.” Our economy and our society are run by the driven. They climb to positions of power by force and then demand the same over-commitment from those under them. That our leaders should require of us an honest day’s work is not disputed. But when they require overloading that destroys the worker, then they have exceeded the moral mandate for leadership.

In the same way, activities and commitments often have a way of adding themselves to our lives. Even though it is much harder to stop something than to start it, periodically, get out the clippers and prune away.

it is good to go on strike occasionally. Try

the fear and love of God and of Christ; love, kindness, and meekness toward our fellow men; indifference to the possessions and events of this life compared with our concern about eternity; self-denial and humility.

Rx: 1 Expect the Unexpected

Rx: 3 Turn Off the Television

Rx: 5 Practice Simplicity and Contentment

Rx: 7 Short-Term Flurry Versus Long-Term Vision

Rx: 13 For Type A’s Only: Stand in Line

Rx: 14 Create Buffer Zones

Rx: 15 Plan for Free Time

If you have a busy schedule with nonstop appointments, consider creating small buffer zones between some of the obligations,

Rx: 16 Be Available

Rx: 2 Learn to Say No

to-do” list and a “to-don’t” list.

Rx: 4 Prune the Activity Branches

Rx: 6 Separate Time from Technology

Rx: 8 Thank God

Rx: 9 Sabotage Your Fuse Box

Rx: 10 Get Less Done But Do the Right Things

We must have God-authored criteria with which to judge our activities, and we must be willing to use them.

Rx: 11 Enjoy Anticipation, Relish the Memories

Rx: 12 Don’t Rush Wisdom

wisdom is almost always slow. Wait for clearness.

wisdom is almost always slow. Wait for clearness. The more important the decision, the longer the time you should take to make it. If life’s pace pushes you, push back. Take as much time and prayer as you need for clearness to develop. And wait for your decision to be affirmed by peace.

Boundaries are about establishing a perimeter around the personal and private spaces of our lives and not letting the world come crashing in uninvited. This is not an issue of selfishness but instead of self-care.

Our love affair with plastic is one of the main reasons we have “no room to wiggle,” that is, no margin. Yet we have lost interest in the discussions about caution and restraint. When

Actually, margin is not a spiritual necessity. But availability is. God expects us to be available for the needs of others. And without margin, each of us would have great difficulty guaranteeing availability. Instead, when God calls, He gets the busy signal.

Happiness is a place between too little and too much.

People are submitting themselves to time-devouring technology. We’re a nerve-racked society where people have difficulty sitting back and thinking of the purpose of what they do. TODD GITLIN, BERKELEY SOCIOLOGIST

a new contemporary axiom: time-saving technologies don’t. Instead they compress time, consume time, and devour time.

What is on our carts? Possessions? Things that consume both our time and money? Things that are temporal, perishable, here today and gone tomorrow? May we have the grace to unclutter our carts to make room for that which matters most.

the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it. G. K. CHESTERTON,

Gratitude fills. Discontent drains. The choice is ours.

Love is extravagant in the price it is willing to pay, the time it is willing to give, the hardships it is willing to endure, and the strength it is willing to spend. JONI EARECKSON TADA,

Love is the currency of the relational life. In the relational life, we spend love and receive love.

Wipe the slate clean. Erase all our beliefs, hopes, and dreams. Remove all our possessions. Nothing should remain. Then let’s give the pencil to God and ask Him to redesign our lives by that which is fully spiritually authentic.

It is not enough to aim; you must hit. ITALIAN PROVERB

But as you adjust your expectations downward, you’ll discover less to be unhappy about. If you always expect success and prosperity, you’re destined to be chronically frustrated. But if you give your expectations to God and then accept what the day brings, you’ll discover a rare freedom.

We live in a world that promotes distance, builds fences, buys locks, and doesn’t talk on elevators. But God, in Christ, says, “Come.

Stress is not the circumstance; it is our response to the circumstance