Margins

For the next few weeks I would like for us to spend some time considering thanksgiving. In this country we set aside a holiday in November for thanksgiving. I think we would all agree that gratitude is a good thing. We are happier people when we live in gratitude; and we become a greater blessing to others around us when we live in gratitude. Who wouldn’t want that? Gratitude is a good thing.

But at the same time, it seems like gratitude is random and accidental for many of us. We seem to have this ebb-and-flow to feeling thankful. And so, I wonder, if thanksgiving and gratitude is something that can be grown and strengthened. We all know that certain habits of physical exercise can help keep our bodies healthy and strong. Might there be some habits of thanksgiving that would help us become more grateful in the way we live? I think so. Let’s consider for the next few weeks what that kind of gratitude looks like and how we can take steps towards stronger thanksgiving in our own lives.

Today I want us to start by looking at a Psalm of David. It is not a Psalm which is typically labeled as a Psalm of thanksgiving, but I think threads of gratitude are woven all through these words.

Psalm 16:1–11 NIV

1 Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge. 2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” 3 I say of the holy people who are in the land, “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.” 4 Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more. I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names on my lips. 5 Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure. 6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. 7 I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. 8 I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, 10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. 11 You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

David’s personal testimony of gratitude from his own heart

I think David frames this poem as a song of thanksgiving because he names right at the front end that everything good in this world comes from God. But we don’t typically call this is Psalm of thanksgiving because it is not a communal Psalm. The chapters that we do label as Psalms of thanksgiving are written as a call for thanksgiving from the community as a whole. They are meant to be an instruction for the entire assembly to give thanks together. But Psalm 16 is personal. This is David’s personal testimony of gratitude from his own heart. There is no call here to the greater assembly of people to respond in any kind of way.

I say to the Lord, “you are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” — outward expressions of thanksgiving from an inward heart of gratitude

And this is why I want to begin here in Psalm 16 with a personal reflection of David on his own heart of gratitude before God. It starts with a personal testimony: I say to the Lord, “you are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” Our outward expressions of thanksgiving come from an inward heart of gratitude. Look with me then at the ways David goes on to explain why it is he can embrace this inner gratitude.

Verse 6 — “the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”

The poetic live that David uses to explain himself is somewhat curious. Verse 6 says, “the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.” David is saying God has placed boundaries in pleasant places? Sure, that’s easy for him to say; he’s the king over all Israel—the boundaries don’t get much more pleasant than that. But at the same time, this is the same David who had to spend years of his life on the run hiding for his life when Saul was trying to kill him. This is the same David who committed murder to cover up his adulterous affair with Bathsheba, and he suffered the consequence when he was confronted with his sin. This is the same David who saw his family fall apart in his final years as his sons mounted an insurrection to steal the throne from the rest of the family. Are these pleasant boundary lines?

We receive the good and deal with the struggle

embrace of gratitude is boosted and enhanced by a recognition of where the boundaries are

There is something for us to see here. As different as our lives might be from an ancient king of Israel, we can note a few similarities. We have both blessing and hardship too. We receive the good and deal with the struggle in the same way. David is able to embrace gratitude by maintaining a perspective of boundaries. He sees his life as existing inside of boundary lines that were not of his own making. This seems counterintuitive to people like us to see gratitude and boundaries together on the same page. How are these things related? David is onto something here. His embrace of gratitude is boosted and enhanced by a recognition of where the boundaries are. That takes a little explanation.

I prefer to use the word margins when talking about boundaries. When the teacher assigns the class to write a paper, sometimes there are instructions about things like double-spacing the lines and setting a certain margin on the edges. This goes back to the days when I was in college and we actually turned in papers printed out on actual paper. And the professor grade the paper and hand it back with comments in the margins. There had to be some empty space left around the edges so that the instructor could place those comments. That’s what margin is; it is empty space around the edges; it is the extra leftover that is not used up. If you work in business or economics, maybe you think of margin as the space where profits fit; it is the extra cushion beyond the cost material and overhead.

margin is where gratitude happens

Here is the takeaway for today: margin is where gratitude happens.

I’m talking about the kind of gratitude that is more than a subjective feeling or a reaction to circumstances. This is the kind of gratitude that is not accidental or random; the kind of gratitude that grows and is strengthened in your life; the kind of gratitude which takes shape both in our actions and in our character; the kind of gratitude that is intentionally pursued and embraced. That kind of gratitude happens in the margins. Or perhaps it can be understood as gratitude that cannot happen if there is no margin. And we are people who try to live more-and-more without margins.

Let’s talk today about margins that can embrace and develop a character of gratitude in three areas of our lives: time, wealth, and hope.

Boundaries for time

we have an unhealthy obsession with time — we schedule our calendars down to the minute because we pack our lives down to the minute

There is a group of us in this church who had the opportunity to attend a Congolese wedding ceremony this past summer. The invitation had a start time noted. And all of us white Americans were there and seated inside by that time. The African guests kept trickling in after that time. In fact the events for the wedding did not begin until about 45 minutes after the stated beginning time. All of the Congolese guests took this in stride as completely normal. We Americans do not know how to handle that because we have an unhealthy obsession with time. We pack our calendars right down to the minute. This church service right here is an example. Andrew and I put together service orders by tagging every single part of the service with the number of minutes we expect to use so that we can keep the whole thing to about an hour. And you all expect it to be that way, so that we can get on to Sunday School class after this and then on to grandma’s for dinner by noon. We schedule our calendars down to the minute because we pack our lives down to the minute.

We struggle with placing margins in our time; leaving space in our schedules that is just open and expendable and unstructured. But this is exactly the place where gratitude happens in our time. We give our time and serve others from a place of gratitude. And I know some of those things are scheduled. But what about opportunities to give time for others that just pop up? The single mom and car full of kids with a flat tire by the side of the road who I pass right by because I am already late to wherever it is I am going. The elderly neighbor who has trouble raking up his leaves by himself, but I can barely make time to even get my own leaves raked up.

God is the one who places boundaries apart from God we have no good thing there is goodness from God placed within the boundaries of our schedule that goodness takes the form of gratitude on the margins

I would love to help. But the reason I do not is because there is no margin in my time. I have not left enough empty space in my calendar. And this is precisely the place in which David enters and reminds us that our time has boundary lines. God is the one who places those boundaries. And apart from God we have no good thing. This means there is goodness from God placed within the boundaries of our schedule. That goodness takes the form of gratitude on the margins. The margin is where we intentionally set aside time to give back.

Here is one of the ways that works for me. I block time in my calendar every week to connect with people. This way, whenever someone calls and asks if I can meet for coffee or something, I can always be assured that we can make that happen somewhere in the coming week. If it has to push further than a week because I have no room, then I know I need to block off more margin in my calendar. And if I have a week in which very few people call me, then I already have the margin there for me to reach out and try to schedule a visit with someone.

Boundaries for wealth

This same principle shows up in the use of our wealth and material possessions. I think most of us have all the best of intentions to be generous people with our wealth. For some of us, our struggle with generosity has to do with margins, not intentions. Sometimes we find ourselves stretching out our own lifestyles with so many purchases and possessions that there is not much of anything left over. And so, when an opportunity arises in the moment to be generous—even for causes that we care about and would love to contribute—instead we find ourselves not being able to express generosity because we have already spent most of what we have; there is no margin.

all we have is given by God apart from God we have no good thing then all that we have is meant for our goodness that goodness takes the form of gratitude on the margins

Last week I talked a bit about contentment and learning to use the word ‘enough’ more often. When we identify the boundary lines of our wealth and material possessions as set by God, then we realize that all we have is given by God. And if all we have is given by God, and apart from God we have no good thing, then all that we have is meant for our goodness when we receive it in the boundaries God has placed.

creating margin in our wealth allows us to be generous with the first fruits instead of the leftovers

Sometimes we refer to our generosity in the church as first fruits. This is an agricultural term as it related to the harvest. When a farmer sets aside and gives away from the first of the harvest, it is giving the first fruits. The opposite would be to give the leftovers. Creating margin in our wealth allows us to be generous with the first fruits instead of the leftovers. We practice better gratitude when we hold aside a portion of our income right at the start for generosity. This way, when an opportunity comes along to help someone financially, you already have the margin set aside to be generous. Otherwise—just like with our time—we may have the best of intentions, but nothing to give if we are only being generous with our leftovers.

The margin is where we intentionally set aside resources to give back.

Boundaries for hope

This last one might strike us as a little odd. Whatever does it mean to have boundary lines for hope? Consider for a moment how David wrestles in Psalm 16 with his own morality. He says in verses 9-10,

Psalm 16:9–10 NIV

9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, 10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.

we are confined to place our hope only in that which God has revealed to us within his faithful covenant promise

David has a hope for eternal salvation with God; but he also knows this hope does not allow him to escape death. There is a boundary line around the hope that God gives to us. I might have a hope that God would give me a superpower so that I could fly or teleport or whatever; but those are all things which are not inside of the boundary line of the hope we have from God. We are confined to place our hope only in that which God has revealed to us within his faithful covenant promise.

And so, I have a hope that God’s love will never let me go; that his love will never fail. This is a hope that is secure for all eternity because God has revealed himself to love us with an everlasting love. I have a hope—along with David—that death will not have the last say; that death will not hold the final victory. This is a hope that is secure because God has provided salvation through faith in Jesus so that we may be brought to new resurrection life.

sometimes it seems we bring such a packed detailed list of our hopes to God that there is no margin

Let’s bring this down to an everyday level. Sometimes it seems we bring such a packed detailed list of our hopes to God that there is no margin; no space left to move in the event that God has some correcting or nudging to bring into our lives.

is there enough margin in my hope to be grateful to God for his goodness given to me?

I audition for the play and I hope that I get the lead role, but instead I am assigned to the support cast. I still got a part and I still get to be a part of the cast—even if it is not the lead. Is there enough margin in my hope to be grateful to God for his goodness given to me?

I tried out for the team and I hope I will be one of the starting players on the varsity team, but instead I was put on as a sub who occasionally comes in off the bench. I still get to be on the team—even if I am not a varsity starter. Is there enough margin in my hope to be grateful to God for his goodness given to me?

I got married and had hopes of becoming a parent of a large family by having children together with my spouse, but instead we struggled with infertility or loss of a child or separation from each other. Is there enough margin in my hope to be grateful for the family relationships I have been given, even it is not everything I wanted it to be?

God has placed us securely inside the boundaries of the hope we have in Jesus — but margin is where gratitude happens

God is still right there in the middle of all these things. God is always beside us in every step of our lives. God—by his grace and by his love—has placed us securely inside the boundaries of the hope we have in Jesus. But margin is where gratitude happens. Leaving extra space apart in our time, in our wealth, and in our hope creates the opening for us to express and embrace thanksgiving to God. We declare along with David, “the boundary lines have fallen for us in pleasant places.” The margins in your life is where that goodness turns into gratitude.