Margin is Stewardship

Hey, this is Tim, and welcome to the Student Life Podcast, where we explore the everyday challenges and big questions of life through a biblical lens while navigating the realities of a secular world. Enjoy. Yo, what up, family? So again, welcome to the Student Life Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Pratt Jr., and I was going to do an episode on this The whole thing around, uh, what is it? What did I say? Uh, deeply committed to examining the scriptures, like studying them, holding scripture in high regard, as well as total dependency on the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we get caught up in extremes, but I'm not gonna do that one. I actually share my heart on Facebook, uh, the Student of Light Facebook page on that, about 20 minutes. Just share some thoughts around a lot of different things. And then I dropped it on YouTube as well. So you can go to www.timothypratt.org to hear those. After just prayer and talking and doing another little video, like 3 minutes, I just feel led to talk about margin. As a matter of fact, the title of this episode is going to be called Margin is Stewardship. Like, margin is stewardship. I think it's very important. Because one of the things that I'm asking you to do today, as you're listening to this episode, is just see it through this lens. Like margin gives us room to respond faithfully instead of consistently reacting from depletion. I'm gonna say it again. It's in my notes. Margin gives us room to respond faithfully instead of consistently reacting from. Completion. I love that thought. I mean, as I was just thinking through and, you know, working through this episode, striving to really get better with preparation instead of just rambling or just jumping into these things, like, I do want to keep the humanity side of it, like light editing. But anywho, it got me to thinking about the book that I often read a lot, at least twice a year. If you don't have it, I highly encourage you to get it, but it's called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John C. Maxwell. And he credits Dallas Willard. Matter of fact, he quotes him when Dallas Willard talks about that hurrying is the great enemy of our spiritual life. And essentially he's challenging us to ruthlessly eliminate it from our life. So in this modern day, it's like right at the start of the book, like a few pages in, I believe. But in this modern day, man, he, like John Mark Cromwell, he sets it up where we were actually supposed to, with technology advances, supposed to be working And spending less time in this constant state of work. Like, that was the vision, but actually we have went way past that. Like, it's just, we are, Lord have mercy, we busy. And, but anywho, like the book, the reason why I read it, because it just often slows me down a lot. And so, and then from a practical sense, now I'm not advocating against prayer by any means, because I do think there's some you know, deeper issues that go on. But I also think that we sometimes pray for God's relief while continuing in rhythms that leave no room to receive his relief. Now that's free, that's not in my notes, so I can't say that again. So anywho, like we need to think about margin. Like margin isn't just about our schedule. Margin should be something that we use to kind of think about life. I think it's biblical. I think Jesus modeled it. Now, I'm not trying to fit Jesus into a work-life balance structure. I'm not doing that. I believe that Jesus taught us when he was in his humanity, being fully God and fully man, he taught us how to posture what I like to call being centered, like God truly being centered. And man, Dre and one of my friends, Dre, he talked about this concept about balance being an illusion. A while ago because, you know, we spend more time at a lot of different things than we spend time with our family. Then my, my boy, my road dog Maurice, you know, he, he actually talked it down and was like, you know, hey, track with me. And, uh, man, I agree with both of them. And so I do, I believe that it's about centeredness. Um, so anywho, uh, I just believe that margin like really helps, like it touches the whole person. We get it from a financial sense when, uh, things happen. In our life and unexpected, margin helps us absorb the blow. Like, it does. And I believe— I'm not going to go with this thought here, but in actuality, what I've learned is that sometimes I believe God works through margin. In other words, sometimes the provision is actually through proper stewardship that we're praying for. But, um, We'll get into that later, but we understand it in the financial sense. But what about emotional? Like when small problems get— becomes an oversized response. Or mental capacity, a mental margin, when we can't, we can't think clearly. Physical, we're consistently depleted. Relational, people get our leftovers, especially the people that we say matter most. Spiritual, little to no space to pray. to listen, to reflect. Like, all of these things matter. So when there's no margin, again, the simplest things, the small things, they can start carrying weight that we were never supposed to consistently carry. And this is what I love about Darius Daniels because he's taught— I learned this from him a while ago. I put it into my own words, but it's like we shouldn't confuse seasons that are designed to stretch us where they become cycles of life. We need to discern when is this a season and when it's a cycle, because seasons change on their own. Like, they, they will eventually change. Cycles change when we do. And I think that's a very thing— important thing to understand. Uh, but to get practical here, uh, to just be vulnerable in this moment, I— my wife, you all know that she's in the Army Reserve. She's a sergeant major. She's a chaplain. She was deployed a while back, a little bit over a year. Man, times move fast, but she was deployed. And just recently she was on an assignment finishing her chaplain, chaplain captain career course. And so this is not like— I have a support system. It is great. Our boys, blended family, you know, we were 1 plus 1, then we have our daughter together. We have 3 kids together. And even in that dynamic, again, there's support, but it still doesn't change the fact that I know when my wife is away. I work as a senior agile coach. I work as an associate pastor or minister, whatever you want to call it. So there's a shepherding element to my life that I just can't turn off. I do have to, again, you know, remember the season of life that I'm in. But the point that I'm trying to get to is that not just that, but I'm also things. I'm a father. And in addition to all of these things, I feel that, like, I feel the weight when my wife is gone. I have a man— single parents, I'm praying for you. I pray that you have a village. Thank God for his grace and mercy. It is difficult. And like I say, like, even the support system, it doesn't replace the fact that my wife has, has been away. And, and the point at hand is this: I remember my daughter doing something and I snapped. Like, for 5 or 10 seconds, I snapped. And just through sitting there, like, the conviction was actually happening while I snapped. And so I sat there. And I was looking at my daughter, and through the conviction of Holy Spirit, again through self-awareness, I talked to her. I went over and I talked to her and I hugged her and explained. And I quickly learned, like straight up, that she wasn't the problem. I was depleted. I'm gonna say that again. My daughter was not the problem. I was depleted, and it was leading to displacement. I'm gonna park right there. How many of us do that? a day-to-day because we don't have margin. So now we just displacing on everybody. We, we do. We just displacement everywhere because we're not addressing the root problem. We're not addressing the rhythms in our life. And the moment, the moment that that happened, man, God showed me that, hey, it's simple. You lack margin. And so in a practical sense, I'm like, I can't keep saying yes to things I say when my wife is here. I can't. And it's even taught me that when my wife get back, there's still some nos that people need to get. Now, posture is everything. I'm not running around here saying just no just to be, you know, just difficult. But a yes is very important. Yes, your yes is expensive. And depending on the season of life, Your yes can even be more expensive. So we need to have awareness into that. Sometimes the best question we can ask is, what am I willing to change? What am I willing to change? Because margin, the reality of it is, is I think a lot of us think we can get out of this without decisions, without hard conversations. We do, but margin it costs. I would rather have the conversation and make decisions versus consistently having that conflict within. That's me. Torrey Roberts wrote this book called Balance. He put on a masterclass in that particular topic. You could probably go find it on YouTube. Type in Balance. You don't have to buy the book. Tori probably— I'm not a celebrity or anything, but I would encourage you if you can get it, I think it's worth it. However, it's older books. There's a lot of YouTube stuff out there. But nevertheless, moving on, I have the book and I think it's worth it just in case Tori does come across this episode. But moving on is that I think it's very important because he unpacked it with that internal conflict thing. And I don't have it in front of me right now and I should have revisited And anywho, uh, but the thing is, no, for one, the word no is a complete sentence. No isn't automatically saying no to God when you're saying no to people. In other words, you can say no to people and still say yes to God. In other words, no isn't automatically spiritual maturity, and yes isn't automatically spiritual obedience. I'm gonna say that again. No isn't automatically spiritual maturity, and yes isn't automatically spiritual obedience. We want to understand what is being asked of us. That is proper stewardship. Right now, if I was to go get another vehicle or trade in my car after our vehicles are paid off, I need to count the cost because it's not just, oh, I want another vehicle. I'm like, how much more of my time? is that going to cost me? From a mental standpoint, if I get laid off or anything like that, what happens? Like, how much is that going to take me from my present? Can I free my wife up from working? Like, these are— like, these are things that I think about because it's bigger than just, oh, emotionally I want— I deserve— man, I deserve be getting us in a lot of trouble. Oh, I want to park right there. It's not necessarily what you can deserve. It's what makes sense for your life. That's the question that we need to be asking ourselves. We have to be careful about. We have to be careful about that. And just like I said, we we have to be careful about giving human beings, human people. I understand we're spirits. We're spirits. But right now we live in this this body. They say this. This, uh, human tabernacle. And we have to be very careful about giving human requests the weight of divine assignments. This goes back to what I was saying earlier. You can say no to leaders, people on your job, and all of that. But is it something on the ministry side of things that we think no to a leader within the local church is a no to God? And let's not confuse the two. Let's not. But moving along, Jesus, when it comes to him, I love— because I'm gonna give you Bible now. So if to my faith-based community, that's a man, back this up with text. Like, I hear you doing all this talking here. You quoted a book by what many would call Christian authors, but give me Bible. Okay, let's talk about Jesus. Jesus was very much available. He didn't rush. He moved at a pace that I just pray to the Lord that I can get to, especially in this world. But hear me, please hear me. He was available, but he was not controlled by the demand. I'm gonna say this one more time. Jesus was available, but he was not controlled by demand. Like Luke 5:15-16, it gets us there. Jesus' reputation, it was spreading. Crowds were gathering both to hear him and to be like, to be healed. They wanted to hear the man and they wanted to be healed by the man. Like, these were demands. They, they, they just, they weren't— forgive me, I said that wrong. These weren't just demands. A lot of these people had legitimate needs. They did. Yet he often withdrew to deserted places and prayed. Again, that's what makes this passage, Luke 5:15-16, so vital. It does. Now hear me, as I was saying earlier, I'm not making the claim that Jesus practiced a modern balance. That's not what I'm doing. Luke is not teaching that, but Jesus clearly was allowing the magnitude of human need— hear me— to determine every movement of his life. He was not allowing the magnitude of human need to determine every movement of his life. These were real people. Real needs. It was a legitimate ministry, we know, but yet he withdrew for prayer, communion with the Father. And hear me— oh Lord, thank you, Holy Spirit, I feel this in my spirit— demand did not automatically equal assignment. Demand— thank you, Holy Spirit— demand did not automatically equal Assignment. In other words, we think, especially in ministry, that constant availability is faithfulness when it's not. Oh my God! I want to go to Mark One so bad, but we're gonna stay. We're gonna stay on topic. So in other words, the tension, the tension that we have to hold is that I am not advocating that margin. Um, margin is the goal. I'm not, because it's, it's not. When it comes down to it, margin becomes, I believe, something that the Lord uses through us being faithful stewards. When I talk about this, a lot of people— I've said this many times— a lot of people say, hey, When I talk about rest and slowing down, they think that I'm saying don't do anything. That's not what I'm saying. Margin does not equal comfort at all costs. It does not. Again, we're going to be stretched because I want this episode to be healthy and balanced. So I'm not saying margin is the silver bullet because there will be seasons, but at the same time, there will be limits. We have to know And discern and ask God for wisdom. Hey, what am I in? How do I navigate this? At the same time, we need to create room to respond faithfully. So this, this is tension that we have to hold. So you can go out here and have all the margin in the world, and if God say, hey, son or daughter, I'm about to allow some things to take place, not to tempt you, because God doesn't tempt with evil, but I'm about to allow some things to take place to test you, to grow you, to mature you, to develop you. Whatever that looks like, I'm telling you right now, you got all the margin in the world. I pray to God that he grace you to learn the lesson. Same with myself, because again, I want this episode to be balanced and healthy because there's no silver bullet. But at the same time, just because it's not, let's not— let us not go to the extreme and neglect the practice of margin. I'd rather, as I've always said, I'd rather have an honest no from someone, or I would rather give it with the right posture, than a reluctant yes. So, so my heart for us, man, is just to pay attention to where you're most depleted in life. And that could be multiple areas. Because if you pay attention to that, That might be where margin needs to show up the most in your life. And most importantly, that might be where Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, needs to show up most in your life. So I'll leave you with this. Just sit with this. Where have you left yourself no room? Where have you left yourself with no room? Better yet, where have you left yourself with no room for Jesus? Love you all, man. Be blessed. Thanks for joining me today on the Student Life Podcast. And remember, learning never stops and wisdom grows as we seek truth in both scripture and life. And until next time, keep walking faithfully in And thinking deeply. Be blessed. Be blessed.