Maintaining Margin

When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field …
- from Leviticus 19:9

Few things prove harder to maintain than healthy margin. Schedules fill up. Budgets burst at the seams. The midnight oil cries out to be burned. But the Lord calls his people to maintain margin in their lives.

This week’s passage comes from a section of the Bible where God teaches his people how to live free lives after their long season of slavery in Egypt. As slaves they lived pressed to the wall. They worked and worked and worked until they were completely exhausted. They accumulated little wealth. They were emotionally, physically, psychologically, and financially broke. That’s why they called out to the Lord for salvation. To their great joy, he heard them.

What would you teach a community of recently freed slaves? What would you tell them they needed to know to thrive in their new situation?

One of the things the Lord thought that his people needed to know was the importance of margin. Literally. The edges of their fields would have food that was just as good, just as healthy, just as valuable as the food in the center of the field. Their every instinct would have told them to get as much as they can and to take as long as was necessary to do it.

Many of us experience that same instinct. Blank space in our schedules and unspent money in our pockets challenge us. Before we know it we have no free time and no extra money. We say “Yes” until we’re pressed. Life without margin comes with consequences, consequences for us and for our communities.

Take a few minutes today to reflect on your calendar and finances. How much “unharvested margin” remains at the edges of the metaphorical fields in your life?

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