The Importance of Margin: Finding Calm in a Busy World • Margin, a book by Richard Swenson, diagnoses chronic overload as the root cause of emotional and spiritual malaise in modern times. • Margin, or having space in one’s life, is necessary to prevent fatigue, anxiety, and stress. • Margin is the opposite of hurry and provides a sense of calm and security. • Marginalized individuals may need more support and resources to achieve margin in their lives.
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For the random interruption on the side of the road, for that friend or family member in need, just for life to happen to you, you have margin. How many of you your digital dashboard would look exactly like this? That’s exactly what I thought. One of you, bring it on, well done. You should be giving this sermon, not me. A few years ago, when I was doing some research around the concept of hurry, I came across this little book, Margin, by a physician, Richard Swenson. His basic diagnosis is that the widespread emotional and spiritual malays of our time is rooted in chronic overload. And his prescription is margin, opening line to his book, the conditions of modern day living devour margin. If you are homeless, we send you to a shelter. If you are penniless, we offer you food stamps. If you are breathless, we connect you to oxygen, but if you are marginlessness, we give you yet one more thing to do. Marginless is fatigue. Margin is energy. Marginless is red ink. Margin is black ink. Marginless is hurry. Margin is calm. Marginless is anxiety. Margin is security. Marginless is culture. Margin is counterculture. Marginless is the disease of the new millennium, and margin is its cure. He writes up 20 categories of overload. Here’s just a few highlights. One, activity overload. Anybody?Critique of Monetizing Burnout and the Root Causes: Insights from Burnout Society by Jung Shulhan • The speaker critiques marketing departments for attempting to monetize burnout with spa days and essential oils. • The solution proposed by the speaker is democratic socialism. • The root cause of burnout is not addressed by democratic socialism according to the speaker. • Jung Shulhan’s book, The Burnout Society, offers a deep analysis of burnout and its prevalence in the modern world. • Shulhan argues that anxiety, depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and burnout syndrome mark the pathology of the 21st century. • Shulhan suggests that Western society has transitioned from a disciplinary society to an achievement society over the last two centuries.
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She has a very erudac critique of the way marketing departments attempt to monetize our burnout with things like a day at the spa or essential oils. God bless your cousin. But in the end, sorry, some of you are the cousin. I should not have said that. There’s a lot of things that end up at the 10 that don’t make it to the night. I’m so sorry. But in the end, her solution is basically democratic socialism. But it seems to me that is an attempt to treat the symptom and not actually deal with the root cause. The Korean German philosopher, Jung Shulhan, has done a deep analysis of this in his book, The Burnout Society, which is fascinating. He opens by saying that neurological illnesses such as anxiety, depression in particular, ADHD, bipolar and burnout syndrome, quote, mark the landscape of pathology at the beginning Of the 21st century and are the emotional household we call home and the hallmark of what he calls a late modern achievement society. His key insight is that the West has moved from what he calls a disciplinary society to an achievement society over the last two centuries. A discipline in a society, so rewind to England 200 years ago or whatever, was governed by no. It was all about what you’re not allowed to do based on your class or your gender or your religion or whatever. You can’t do this. You can’t do that.The Origins and Effects of Depression Culture in the Achievement Society • The rise of depression is linked to the West’s embrace of individualism and rejection of societal norms. • Depression often stems from feeling unable to measure up and be oneself in an achievement-focused society. • The belief that ‘nothing is possible’ is a symptom of a society that thinks ‘nothing is impossible’. • The current achievement culture is being replaced by a ‘doping society’ where individuals escape stress and competition through various means. • These means of escape can include drugs, alcohol, technology, and work.
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When the disciplinary model for behaviors, the rules of authority and observance of taboos that gave social classes, as well as both sexes, a specific destiny, broke against norms By joining us to be ourselves. Meaning this depression culture started as the West began to say, you do you. Be true to yourself. Don’t let anybody, don’t let your gender, don’t let your class, don’t let your religion, don’t let your parents, don’t let your city tell you what to do, you do you. With that came the rise of depression. The depressed individual is unable to measure up. He is tired of having to become himself. Anybody? The depressive’s bleak thought, this is a key insight, nothing is possible can only occur in a society that thinks nothing is impossible. And he writes that at the end, that now our achievement society is giving way to a doping society where we just escape from all of the stress and competition and the secular nihilism and The N. We into a life of doping, whether it is with drugs or alcohol or pot or just Netflix or Instagram or eating out or video games or work or whatever our cultural narcotic of choice is. And this is the hard truth. Many of us don’t have enough margin in our life not because we’re type A stereotypical overachieversThe Secular Worldview: Life is Fleeting and Meaningless • Life in a secular worldview is seen as fleeting, with no vision of eternity, meaning, or purpose beyond one’s own pleasure or work. • There is no higher power guiding or loving individuals unconditionally in a secular worldview. • The obsession with efficiency, pleasure, work, and hedonism is prevalent in secular culture, especially in cities. • People often move to cities to advance their careers and engage in adult play, rather than for a lower cost of living or a relaxed lifestyle.
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It’s very, it isn’t anything about that. But in a secular frame of reality, there is no vision of eternity. And there is no vision of meaning and purpose to life beyond what you make of it, which for most people is either pleasure or work or some combination of the two if you’re in a city. In a secular worldview, life is fleeting. You are an animal and nothing more. There’s no one watching out for you. There’s no greater meaning or purpose or plan for your life or loving God with intentions for your future. No one’s loving you just as you are. You are what you do or what you consume or how you dress or what you enjoy. Hence the obsession in our culture with efficiency and pleasure or work and hedonism. For which the city is a breeding ground. Why do people move to a city to kill it in their career and to have play for grownups? So it’s the main two things, not for cost of living. Like nobody’s here because it’s like just really cheap rent and a relaxed place to raise children. Right? People are here to make money and to play as 20 and 30-somethings. And the result is a life with no margin, but instead with noise, overwork, pathological busyness, distraction, and as a result burnout. Now, the word that we’ve been using for this kind of a culture is hurry.The Culture of Hurry: Why We Have No Margin in Our Lives • Our culture has an obsession with efficiency, pleasure, work, and hedonism, which leads to a life with no margin and burnout. • People move to cities to make money and have play as 20 and 30-somethings, resulting in noise, overwork, pathological busyness, and distraction. • The term used for this kind of culture is ‘hurry’, which is caused by too much to do and not enough time, leading to the need to speed up the pace of our minds.
Speaker 1
No one’s loving you just as you are. You are what you do or what you consume or how you dress or what you enjoy. Hence the obsession in our culture with efficiency and pleasure or work and hedonism. For which the city is a breeding ground. Why do people move to a city to kill it in their career and to have play for grownups? So it’s the main two things, not for cost of living. Like nobody’s here because it’s like just really cheap rent and a relaxed place to raise children. Right? People are here to make money and to play as 20 and 30-somethings. And the result is a life with no margin, but instead with noise, overwork, pathological busyness, distraction, and as a result burnout. Now, the word that we’ve been using for this kind of a culture is hurry. And the essence of hurry we said is too much to do. It’s not a lot to do. That’s actually healthy. It’s too much to do. Where we just don’t have enough time. And so the only way to cram it all in is to speed up the pace of our mind and our body and our relationships and our interactions with other people, including God and our own soul, to this Pace that is incompatible with love and with life in the kingdom of the heavens. And to reiterate what we’ve said all along, that is the main problem.The Limitations of Our Mind and Capacity • Intelligence is limited and cannot be compared to others, which can lead to decreased joy. • Gifting is unique to each individual and comparing oneself to others can also limit happiness. • Personality and emotional capacity have limitations, and comparing oneself to others can again limit happiness and fulfillment.
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It limits us. Yes our mind is like a muscle and we can exercise it to its full potential. But I don’t know about you. But no matter how much I read or study or how many degrees I pursue I will simply never have the intelligence of many of the people I most look up to. This is a limitation. Our gifting on a very similar note I will never have the gifting of many of the people I look most up to. And comparison as we all know just eats away at our joy. Our personality and emotional capacity number four. We only have so much capacity. I’m an introvert. That is like I’m actually very relational but my relational plate is like a teacup. Not a serving platter. Right? And so that is a really significant limitation. That’s a glass ceiling over my life. I’m also a bit melancholy by nature. And so some people who are just more extroverted and a little bit tougher just have way more capacity than I do. They can relate to more people. They can carry more responsibility. They can handle more stress, more criticism. They can work more hours. They can lead more people than I could ever dream of. Our family of origin. None of us start with a blank slate. Some of us start with a leg up. Others of us walk with a limp early on from our years. And much of that has to do with who our parents were or were not. You come from a single family home or two parents where they healthy or dysfunctional and healthy is relative.The Flipping of Time and Money as We Age • As we age and our life’s constraints come into play, we tend to have money, but we are time poor. • For every close relationship, our margin or free time gets cut in half. • Having children significantly reduces our free time, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. • There are limits to God’s call on each of us.
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Many have noted that when we’re young we are money poor, but we tend to have time, especially if we are single. But as we age and then pick the constraints that come to define our life, it flips and many of us now have money, but we are time poor. They say that for every close relationship, cut your margin or free time in half. So when you get married, you have half the free time that you had when you were single. When you have a baby, you’re down to 25%. I have three children, which means in theory that I have 8.3% of the free time I had pre-marriage. Who’s counting? All right. Thought about renaming my children limitation. Number one, limitation number two, limitation number three. Again, this isn’t bad. It’s wonderful. It’s a limitation for, I guess, the season of my life, but a season that is, you know, a few decades long. Number nine, God’s call on our life. I hesitate to say this because, again, it would be really easy to misread, but there are limits to God’s call on each of us. There’s a sphere in the language of Corinthians that God has assigned to each of us. I think of Peter’s envy of John’s call over his less pleasant assignment of an upside down crucifixion. And Jesus had to lovingly reprimand Peter as he often does to us. What is that to you? You follow me. Many of us need to hear those same words. Don’t worry about so and so. Don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about that other person. You follow me. This is the call in your life.Simplifying Life to Follow Jesus and Embracing Limits • Simplify life around following Jesus by abiding in quiet prayer and doing meaningful work assigned by him. • Receive the gift of limits to understand and embrace the talents God has given. • Embrace limits with joy and contentment and avoid exhaustion, depression, anxiety, burnout, and superficial spirituality.
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It is to slow down and simplify around the three goals of following Jesus, to be with him, to become like him and to do what he did. Put another way to just simplify our life around abiding quiet prayer, around our spiritual formation, our growth and maturity into people of love, and just to do whatever small but Meaningful work Jesus has assigned to each of us to do in this world. But to do this, we have to in the language of the legend that is Pizzcazero, receive the gift of limits. I love what he writes in the emotionally healthy church. In emotionally healthy churches, people understand the limits God has given them. They joyfully receive the one, two, seven or ten talents God has so graciously distributed. As a result, they are not frenzied or covetous, trying to live a life God never intended. They are marked by contentment and joy. Emotionally, healthy churches also embrace their limits with the same joy and contentment, not attempting to be like another church. They have a confident sense of God’s good hand on their church for such a time as this. Exhaustion, depression, anxiety, burnout, superficial spirituality.The Culture of Transgression and Limitations: Examining Anti-Science Ideologies • The conversation about limitations is not about science or psychology, it’s about ideology and an attempt to transgress limitations of the body and sexuality. • This culture-wide attempt to transgress any and all limitations shows an unwillingness to accept limitations before God. • The speaker proposes that some limitations may be a gift to receive rather than an obstacle to overcome. • The idea of receiving limitations as a gift may be a form of grace before God. • The speaker references a conversation with Pete Scazero where he mentions finding God’s grace.
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But the conversation is very little to say to that. It’s not about science, it’s not about psychology, it’s actually anti-science, it’s about ideology. And much of it is in about an attempt, a culture-wide attempt to transgress any and all limitations, even the limitations of our own body or our own sexuality, to say my body itself will Not even tell me who I can be or what I can do. And at the risk of sounding insensitive, that is a great example of a culture that just cannot accept any kind of limitations before God, that cannot say with a heart of delight, this Is my place before God in his world. But what if our limitations aren’t an obstacle to overcome or fight, but what if at least some of them are a gift to receive? And again, this is one side of a two-sided conversation, potential is true, I get all of the stuff, so just please have grace for my language here. But what if there’s a grace here? I was chatting to Pete Scazero just recently, and he had this great line, this one throwaway line, he said, you know you find God’s will for your life in your limitations. We all get that we find God’s will for our life and our potential, and our gifting or our personality or the open doors before us or opportunities, and that’s beautiful, again I’m all For it. But it’s just as true that we find God’s will for our limitations.Finding God’s Will in Your Limitations • God’s will for your life can be found in your limitations as well as your potential. • Focusing solely on potential while ignoring limitations can lead to burnout. • Burnout can be caused by giving too much, not just by working too many hours.
Speaker 1
And again, this is one side of a two-sided conversation, potential is true, I get all of the stuff, so just please have grace for my language here. But what if there’s a grace here? I was chatting to Pete Scazero just recently, and he had this great line, this one throwaway line, he said, you know you find God’s will for your life in your limitations. We all get that we find God’s will for our life and our potential, and our gifting or our personality or the open doors before us or opportunities, and that’s beautiful, again I’m all For it. But it’s just as true that we find God’s will for our limitations. And when we focus on potential, but say little to nothing about limitations, we drive our soul and our society to burn out or at least to hurry. Parker Palmer has this beautiful little book, Let Your Life Speak, where he tells his story of burnout. And my favorite inside of the book is he just points out that sometimes burnout is a function of giving too much, meaning you work too many hours, you do too many things. But for most of us, that problem is easy to fix, just take a vacation and cut a few things out of your schedule. The deeper problem is that for many of us burnout is a function of trying to give something that’s not ours to give in the first place, trying to be somebody that we’re not, trying to transgress Our limitations to please our parents. Or fit the stereotype of this gender, this class, this person, this pastor, this thing, this whatever, that just drive our soul to exhaustion because we can’t live inside of our limitations.High task capacity but low emotional and relational capacity • Speaker has a high capacity for task and is motivated by it. • Speaker has a low capacity on an emotional and relational level. • Speaker struggles with anxiety and depression and was suicidal in their 20s. • Speaker has to balance their task-oriented nature with their relationships to avoid being a jerk to their wife.
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If I’m honest, I actually, this is embarrassing, but I actually have a really high capacity for task. So I know the disk test hasn’t been popular in a decade, but I love it. I’m a DC if you know on the disk test, so I’m all motivated by task. I just wake up in the morning and I just want to get crap done. And I can get a lot done. Like just ask my family, like I just, I have this gear I get into where just stuff is getting done. But you do not want to be within a one mile radiance of me if I do that for very long because I actually have a very low capacity on an emotional level. Some of you know I’m very melancholy by nature and in my 20s I had a very serious struggle with anxiety and depression. It was suicidal for several years. And I have a very low relational capacity. And so there’s this literally daily struggle in my life where part of me can just go get crap done. But if I do that, I will not, I will be a jerk to my wife and my children. I will not be a loving, not just, will I not be happy? I will not be a loving soul before God. And all of us are a little bit different. My wife down here actually has a really high emotional capacity. She’s really resilient and a really high relational capacity. She has the platter, right? Very extroverted. But she has chronic health issues. And her body just won’t let her live. If she does too much with her body, she will just at some point begin to wither on the vine.Defining and Understanding Simplicity as a Lifestyle • Simplicity is a discipline that helps individuals focus on what really matters; reducing unnecessary possessions and activities can help prioritize important aspects of life. • Simplicity involves intentionally seeking out a lifestyle with only necessary possessions. • Simplicity affects not only material possessions, but can also impact mental energy and time management.
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But it is a discipline in that it’s about disciplining ourselves to live for what really matters and not waste our time and with it our life on ephemeral pursuits, trivia, entertainment, Distraction, materialism, whatever it is. McCown defines it as the discipline pursuit of less. Joshua Becker, who is a former pastor who now teaches on minimalism full-time, defines it as a lifestyle where people intentionally seek to live with only the things they really need. Richard Foster, kind of the guru of evangelicalism, has simplicity as an inward reality that can be seen in an outward lifestyle. Now at one level, simplicity is just about our money and our stuff. It’s about living with less, less clothes in our closet, less things in our garage or our apartment, less crap that we don’t need, whatever. Because as Alan Fadling insightfully said, the drive to possess is an engine for hurry. Meaning the more stuff we have, the busier we are, everything we have. It takes time, it takes care, it takes responsibility, it takes repair, it takes mental energy, it takes time to use it or whatever. So the more things that we have, the busier that we are, the more of a life of hurry we live. So at one level, simplicity or minimalism or whatever you want to call it, it’s just about living with less stuff.Simplicity: Living with Less to Create Space • Simplicity is an inward reality that can be seen in an outward lifestyle according to Richard Foster. • Living with less stuff leads to a less busy life. • Creating space by minimizing hobbies, travel, entertainment, and digital distraction is a disciplined attempt to simplify all aspects of life.
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Richard Foster, kind of the guru of evangelicalism, has simplicity as an inward reality that can be seen in an outward lifestyle. Now at one level, simplicity is just about our money and our stuff. It’s about living with less, less clothes in our closet, less things in our garage or our apartment, less crap that we don’t need, whatever. Because as Alan Fadling insightfully said, the drive to possess is an engine for hurry. Meaning the more stuff we have, the busier we are, everything we have. It takes time, it takes care, it takes responsibility, it takes repair, it takes mental energy, it takes time to use it or whatever. So the more things that we have, the busier that we are, the more of a life of hurry we live. So at one level, simplicity or minimalism or whatever you want to call it, it’s just about living with less stuff. But another level where it really starts to get traction is it’s about all of our life, less hobbies, less travel, less entertainment, less digital distraction, not out of some kind Of austere, grumpy masochism, but rather as a disciplined attempt to create space and margin for more of what we most value and desire in our heart before God. Which for those of us who follow Jesus is Jesus himself.Jesus’ Theology of Simplicity: Seeking First His Kingdom • Jesus’ vision in Matthew chapter 6 is a theology of simplicity. • Jesus encourages seeking first his kingdom and righteousness rather than material possessions. • Living by values of pagan or secular culture can lead to a life of hurry and burnout.
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All week long I keep thinking of Jesus’ vision of a simple life in the summer on the Mount, and we’ll do an in-depth exit Jesus on this in Matthew chapter 6, which is really kind of a theology Of simplicity. And at one point at the end he says, do not worry, saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the pagans, not a derogatory term in Jesus’ day, the pagans run after all these things, but you’re heavenly Father, he knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Notice his choice of verb, the pagans run after all of these things. Not walk, not hike even, not mosey, but run. When you live by the values of pagan or secular culture, be it money or hedonism or career success or status or likes on Instagram or travel or rock climbing experience or whatever your Thing is, it will likely drive you to a life of hurry, and in the end to a life with no margin and lots of burnout. Jesus’ invitation is to set life with him in the kingdom as the predominant desire of our heart, to make living with Jesus, and becoming like Jesus, the orientation of our whole being, That’s what he means by righteousness, he means the goodness of your character.
