Creating margins in our lives

So many share the dreaded disease of busyness. Going from one thing to another. Arriving breathless, and leaving exhausted.

Busyness says, "I can take on one more thing. How could I say no?" Then the next thing you know the calendar is full, but life is empty.

Busyness is unbiased and takes no prisoners.

It is certainly not from God.

Leviticus 23:22 has some strange instructions about busyness: "And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God."

This verse seems particularly odd, especially for people who are no longer part of an agrarian society.

When we are hungry, we go to the fridge. If there is nothing there, we will go to the store. Some of us go to the store two, three, even four times a day to reap the harvest. We may not farm, but we know to reap is to gather.

In the era this verse was written, one went out to reap the harvest and collect what would last them most of the coming year. Your family's life may depend on that harvest.

Here, though, God says do not reap to the edges. Leave the edges behind for those who have no field of their own, and the traveler, the one who does not belong.

As the farmer who planted the field, tended the field and then reaped the field, why, then, would he leave the edges for someone who did not plant, did not tend and is not from here to enjoy?

The edges were left because margin was needed.

If we reap to the edges, leaving no room for margin, then we are going to miss out on people.

Leaving the edges makes room for the left out to be brought in, the hungry and empty to be hopeful and the lonely to be welcomed.

Creating margins in our schedule allows us the freedom to slow down, listen and receive the blessing of being used by God for someone's good and His glory.

When we leave the edges, we create margin. When we create margin in our lives, we create room for other people: People who need us, who don't belong. People like you and me.