An encouragement toward creating margin

Life will fill the space if you let it!

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

Dear friends,

This week has been a blur. Preaching prep, uni assignments, weddings, youth camp, a creative night, marriage prep, Bible studies, people we love in hospital, kids packing for holidays, house renovations, flooring and tiles to pick up, no food in the fridge, and a mountain of washing waiting to be folded.

Everywhere I turn, I hear the same story. We’re all stretched thin. We’re all longing for time, space, holidays, or just some kind of release valve. Yet somehow, there’s no time for holidays. The calendar is full, and the year is only getting busier.

But this isn’t a new problem.

In the book of Ruth, and even back in Leviticus, God told His people not to harvest the edges of their fields. They were to leave margin; space for the poor, the stranger, and the weary. It was a rhythm of restraint, built into life so that people would never operate at 100% capacity. Not with their land. Not with their time. Not with their lives.

I can’t help but wonder what that principle looks like for us. Because if Israel’s crops needed margin, so do our calendars.

I think back to those primary school notebooks, where we had to rule margins on the side of the page. Those blank spaces weren’t wasted; they were where the teacher left comments, corrections, encouragement. Without them, there’d be no room for feedback. And without margin in our lives, how will we ever make space to hear the Spirit?

Even Moses, worn thin by the task of leading Israel, encountered God in the cleft of the rock. A space carved out by God Himself, where His presence could be known. Maybe we need to find our cleft. Maybe God is still inviting us into hidden corners, carved-out spaces, where He can speak and steady our hearts.

And that’s the challenge: to choose margin in a maxed-out life. Not as a luxury, but as obedience. Not as an escape, but as a way of listening.

So what could margin look like this week?

It doesn’t have to be dramatic. Sometimes margin is found in the smallest, simplest practices:

• Quiet time with Scripture: even ten minutes can recalibrate your whole day.

• Gardening: hands in the soil, heart at rest.

• A dedicated quiet space in your home, even if it’s just a chair by a window.

• A prayer triplet : two trusted friends who check in, encourage, and pray with you.

• A road trip with no agenda except to breathe and notice God’s creation.

• A morning at a café with your journal and no phone notifications.

Friends, the end of the year won’t slow down. If anything, it speeds up with harvest festivals, Thanksgiving, Christmas productions, and all the details that come with them. But that’s exactly why we need margin more than ever.

Don’t plot your fields to the edges. Leave room. Make space. Carve out a cleft. That’s where God’s voice will meet you, even in the busiest season.

With you in the thick of it,😬

Cass

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