Chris Grainger: 1:01

Welcome to the Lion Within Us, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I'm your host, chris Granger. Let's jump in. All right, fellas, it's me time, let's get into it, okay.

Chris Grainger: 1:12

So the scripture of the week this week, luke 10, verse 41 to 42,. It says Martha, martha, the Lord answered you are worried and upset about many things, but few are needed, or indeed, indeed, only one. Mary has chosen which is better and it will not be taken away from her. So the whole idea this week, guys, we're unpacking, is why margin is important in our life, and I know this topic is relevant because I talked to so many guys and the average schedule is mindblowing. Days are planned out down to the minute, right, often months in advance. We have reminders and notifications always popping up. Okay, here's the next thing that needs your attention. Here's the next thing that needs your attention. Don't forget this one. And then, before you know it, your life flies by in a constant state of reaction, and that scares the crap out of me. Scripture suggests that having some margin in our life for the holy interruptions that come across our path are needed. It's a reprieve from the world of chaos we live in and I just want to just take a dive into God's word and study this together and think about this.

Chris Grainger: 2:26

And again, this is a Bible study. That's on the Bible app for YouVersion. So, if you're on YouVersion, go check out our page. Go to thelinewiththemus, check on free tools, check out the Bible studies. We have tons and tons of Bible studies out there and we even do Bible studies together on the Bible app. So you can friend me, we can connect there on the Bible app and as we kick off these studies together, we can engage and have comments and back and forth. It's just a fun time. So, again, thelinewithinus, click on those free tools, down to the Bible studies and get started. All right, now we're going to start out this.

Chris Grainger: 3:04

Today we're almost going to read the scripture of the week this week again, 41 to 42, but we need a little more context. Context is always good. So let's look at Luke 10, starting at 38, 38 through 42. And it says now, as they were traveling along, he entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister called Mary who was seated at the Lord's feet listening to his word, but Martha was distracted with all her preparations. And she came up to him and said Lord, lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me, then we get the Scripture of the Week. But the Lord answered and said to her Martha, martha, you're worried and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen a good part, which is what shall we not, what shall not be taken away from her? So again, big margin deficiency, big margin deficiency.

Chris Grainger: 3:58

Out there, every generation I don't know anybody I've talked to that says you know, I got so much free time. It's generation I don't know anybody I've talked to that says you know, I've got so much free time, I don't even know what to do with it. That comment doesn't exist because we jam our schedules so tight. And a prudent way to look at this is to see if the same behavior was, was existing in Jesus' ministry. And it wasn't right. Jesus was no, he had plenty of margin right.

Chris Grainger: 4:33

And what's comical is that Martha often, often, gets a bad rap. She does Uh, cause, cause. Essentially, she was told to stop for a minute. Be where your feet are, martha. But when I think about it, she was responding to the greatest guest that would ever come to her home. And I get the response. And you know what? It's the flatter bone be getting ready. And I totally get it.

Chris Grainger: 5:09

But let's say you had a contest that you entered, okay. And let's say you received a call that you won this contest and the winning of this contest was the person who you love the most, like the biggest celebrity fan, whoever that may be, they're going to be at your house, come to your home, but here's the caveat they're going to be there in two hours. How would you spend that time waiting? Okay, now for me, I know what's going to happen If that happens boom, I'm rocking, like we're going in cleaning mode like never before. We're going to get ready. It's going to be awesome and I'm going to do all I can to prepare so that, when they arrive, I can just enjoy that time. And I get it. Okay, and the buzz, the excitement, I mean all the stuff.

Chris Grainger: 6:02

I can imagine Martha just stuffing the drawers and the closets, just right, just clean, clean, clean, put it up Right. And because she's trying to conceal the reality of her circumstances, which is just life, and we put a smile on our face. We finished that flight and we the funny part is, we even welcome a guest in after we do it. And what do we first? First thing we say, oh, just excuse the mess, not like, come on now, seriously, bro. So I get it. This it's real. And martha had a really good reason to fully engage this cleaning because, let's face it, the messiah was in her living room. I mean, come on, okay on, I don't care how cool, you are the biggest celebrity that you know.

Chris Grainger: 6:44

Nobody as important as Jesus has ever entered your living room and, just like Jesus does, in true Jesus fashion, he teaches Martha and through that he's teaching us why that margin is so important and we must protect it and utilize it to taste what he's trying to give us, because he was inviting Martha as well into a beautiful moment where she could rest, reflect and strengthen that relationship. Mary had the margin and she knew it. She had energy, she had reflection to prioritize and learn. That was important, right, and we may think ourselves as learners, but Mary shows us that being a learner is impossible if we don't have the margin to create the space to learn. Does that make sense? So Jesus is just showing us right here that if we don't have that margin, that we find ourselves chasing the calendar and the priorities and all the things that are predetermined right. They limit our ability to identify what opportunities when the opportunities come across the place where God desires to soak into us. And I've had to really wrestle with this. But Mary's not lazy, she's not. She was intentional and I think that's so important to remember to not paint these people who are prioritizing margin as being lazy.

Chris Grainger: 8:13

If he were to enter my home today, I hope I would have the wherewithal and the margin to stop, to be still and just be with him right where I'm at and not worry about all the things that are happening. My personality says I probably would struggle with that, just to be honest, but I'm trying to fight and to think through how can I be more intentional in this area? All right, so look, guys, we'll take our first break, we'll come back and we're going to talk about the consequences of no margin. We'll be right back. I don't know about you, but I used to find Mondays really rough. I would find myself trying to reset for work, trying to get my bearing on the family calendar, trying to find time for my own spiritual growth and development, and often I found myself overwhelmed or just flatly ignoring aspects of my life that I know are meaningful to me. What I learned was that if I had immediate access to important and impactful spiritual topics and reflections to start my week well, after the allure of a Sunday sermon has passed, I would set my whole week up to be more meaningful and for the opportunity to make a true impact.

Chris Grainger: 9:32

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Chris Grainger: 10:27

So, again, we just opened up. We've talked about why we need that margin in our life, okay, so that's super important to know. Now we need to talk about the consequences. So what happens if we don't have margin? And Proverbs 21, 16 says whoever strays from the path of prudence comes to rest in the company of the departing. And prudent is a word that most people are familiar with, but connecting prudence with our daily walk is challenging, because prudent means being careful about our choices. That means we have to stop, we have to think before we act. Right, it's not just knee-jerk reactions, no, we're being prudent here. And in the context of this verse, it appears that a failure to be prudent over our schedules not only robs us from marching guys, but it increases the propensity to lose our way. And that is super, super, it's scary. And that that is super, super, that's scary. And there's in the high-tech world today. Think about this for a second. Nobody's ever lost anymore, right, they're? They're not. Now.

Chris Grainger: 11:28

If you were to be able to get a borrow bar our buddy marty mcfly's delorean right and head back to the 90s, you would find that going on a trip. It required something, okay, it required planning, it required maps, it required this thing called atlases, and getting lost was easy to do because the navigation was done in the moment Right, and the more prudent the navigator, the higher probability of landing at your destination. No, I mean, it happens to me and my wife all the time when, when, for some reason, she'll, hey, you should have turned back there, I'm like, well, you should have told me for soon. But anyway, that's a whole nother story. But then I remember a trip, though there was a trip that comes to mind, this is a funny one. It was a motorcycle trip. We were headed to Cherokee. It was awesome.

Chris Grainger: 12:23

Me was, my dad lost his way and all of a sudden we were riding coming from virginia to cherokee okay, and that's in north carolina and all of a sudden we get a sign. And it was at night, and we hit a sign that said welcome to tennessee. I'm like uh-oh. And then at that moment we we realized we had wandered off the desired path. Right Now we had to do a little course correction, a little bit of jabbing, a little bit of hazing, but we redirected and we were able to have a really good time of fellowship and spend that time in the Great Smoky Mountains. But the sign right, that welcome sign that we saw welcome to Tennessee was a moment of clarity for us Because it clearly showed us that we weren't in the right, where we were supposed to be. And it made me think.

Chris Grainger: 13:05

How often do we miss the signs, simply because there's not enough margin in our lives to look up? Or perhaps even worse, the signs that we should see are not visible at all because of the company that we're surrounding ourselves with. They're an obstruction to that sign. I'm telling you this is a big deal, because the world we live in really what happens? We have to be careful, because we start relaxing our morals, our virtues, our values and we go to extreme lengths at times not to rock the boat versus standing up for truth.

Chris Grainger: 13:42

So if you find yourself at a restaurant let's just give it a scenario You're having, you're breaking bread with a fellow brother or sister in Christ, okay, and, and both you guys, both you brothers, are married. Let's just say that. And let's say the other dude. And let's say the other dude at this lunch, let's say he makes a sexually explicit comment about the waitress. Okay, two dudes having lunch, both of you married, both of you Christians. He makes a comment about the waitress, about her being hot or something, right Now, usually in an effort not to disrupt the friendship, what do we do? We kind of laugh or comment as to kind of downplay or affirm that we're in agreement. Right, that's an option. Or maybe change the subject, okay, and you move to a different conversation to get to a ground where you feel comfortable.

Chris Grainger: 14:46

The point I'm making here is there's one option that takes prudence and boldness. If you're going to be a disciple of Christ, and that option is not comfortable, you have to address the comment head on. Then you got to do it gently and with love, and I do just remind them of the covenant of marriage and what that means to you and where you are, and you can't support their actions. Ok, at that moment you become the sign that reminds them of how to get back on the right path. At that moment you are the welcome to Tennessee. Oh, wait, a minute, I shouldn't be doing that. Now here's a problem. This is bold, this is risky, and it's absolutely true that it's bold and risky.

Chris Grainger: 15:32

But it takes that level of prudence to ensure that margin that we, that we build the right margin in our life of prudence, to ensure that margin, that we build the right margin in our life and that we're spending time on the path that God desires and that company that we have around us will help us grow closer to him. Because no one ever thinks that wakes up and says, you know what, today's the day I'm going to get on the wrong path, right, and I'm just going to rest and just do some morally terrible things. No, no one ever thinks that. It's just, it's ridiculous. The same way, you don't wake up say today's the day I'm going to ruin my marriage, today's the day I'm going to ruin my relationship with my kids. No, but that's what happens.

Chris Grainger: 16:09

But if we keep adequate margin in our life to look around, to assess, to adjust our lives and ensure that we're staying in lockstep to what God's calling us to do, that's so important. Now here's a quick litmus test for you, and I dare you to do this Check to see who the last three text messages in your phone are to. Now, and I don't even care what the messages say, here's what I want you to think about Do those three people pull you closer to God or push you further away? Okay, I'm not and I'm not. This is not judging here, but are they pulling you closer to God or pushing you further away? If further away is the answer, what can you? What steps can you take to exercise more biblical prudence in your walk, to engage with more fellow brothers and sisters in Christ that are going to encourage you Right? So go through, take that test and see what shows up. And I'm telling you, fellas, we have to make sure that we notice the welcome signs that God's put us, that God's put in place in our life, and we and we see those welcome signs most efficiently and most effectively when we are keeping the right company. It's so important.

Chris Grainger: 17:22

I had a guy ask me the other day he's like man, I'm just trying to figure out life. And he's trying to figure out, he's just finishing school, he doesn't know what to do. And I just asked him what type of guys are speaking into your life right now? Who are you spending your time with? He was telling me that it was a dumpster fire. I'm like bro, you're expecting to grow and look who's constantly pulling you down? Create the margin, get around the right people. All right, guys, we'll take our last break, we'll be right back and we're going to try to give you some insights on how to create and maintain that margin. We'll be right back.

Chris Grainger: 17:56

When I reflect on the kind of things that the men who participated in our discipleship masterminds had in the past, I am overwhelmed by the quality of their comments and commitment to each other. Several of the guys commented that this was the most meaningful leadership experience they've encountered, and we even had one man log into a discipleship mastermind while a hurricane was hitting his house. He was that committed and received that much from his peer group that he didn't want to miss it. Because of this extraordinary commitment and because it's a true gift and pleasure, we made them a core part of our community and we hope you might join us. We sit up men with their own peer advisory group of seven individuals that meet every other week for 12 weeks. Each member shares areas they want to focus on, such as improving their prayer life, being more intentional with their wives or maybe shedding a few extra pounds. Together, we help them strategize, make commitments, find accountability and learn. It's been our experience that most guys want a community of trustworthy men to share their ideas and create support for each other with, and it's been our experience that most men don't either create this for themselves or seek them out. So we do this because we want you to have that in your life, and all that is needed to begin winning is you. If this sounds interesting, check out our community to see the dates and times of when these different groups meet. Visit thelionwithinus to start your free trial of our community. To get started today. That's thelionwithinus, and I would love to see you lean in and tap into the power of our discipleship masterminds. All right, fellas.

Chris Grainger: 19:57

Now we talked about why margin is so important in our life. I know this is a big topic, it's a big deal, it's kind of heavy. We talked also the consequences of no margin. We will unpack that in Proverbs. Now we're going to look at why we should create it and maintain it.

Chris Grainger: 20:12

In Proverbs 21, 5 says the plan of the diligent leads surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. Okay, now, if you're like me, every once in a while you get tempted by hearing about some like a hot stop. You know pick or like some immediate reward. You know like I got to do that. You know pick or like some immediate reward. You know like I got to do that. But Proverbs gives us a warning about being so hasty and it reminds us that it leads often to poverty, not wealth, and that the avenue towards truly great decision making isn't short term but long term. And that requires margin between instinct and behavior, because margin never happens without intentional effort, because Proverbs is saying like, look, it's going to take some diligence here to plan this stuff out, to make sure you're successful. And this leads to the question of how to execute at this level of planning to yield an abundance.

Chris Grainger: 21:18

And I'll start thinking about that and examining that, reflecting on that, and I want to give you a couple, just a couple practical ways that you can incorporate immediately to see some, hopefully some good results. The first is you got to set the right boundaries and you got to let those boundaries align to God's will for your life. And that may sound restrictive, I don't want boundaries because it's too restrictive, bro, I can't help you Because they produce the opposite result. It's not restrictive. Boundaries provide security and set of guidelines that are predetermined to aid in proper decision making for the right moment. Boundaries take the pressure away from feeling that we must please everyone, because when a boundary is known, it becomes easier to follow, even when the steps are out of line. When a boundary is in place, it helps us to see when corrective action lies need to be taken. So if you have the right boundary set up and things come across your plate that you know do not align to what God's called you to do, you can just either say no, that's a quick yes, no, it's binary, boom, got it.

Chris Grainger: 22:27

Second thing to do will be to audit your calendar. Audit, take the time to see where your priorities and your tasks align. Now, if you choose to take a priority-driven, if you choose to really focus on that priority-driven approach to manage your time, you have to be careful that you're not that you're not when you're doing that, because you slip into task management mode and you find yourself checking boxes. Right, You're just checking boxes, you got to do this, got to do this, got to do this. But when the attention shifts from a task to a priority-driven approach, right, what happens is when the things pop on your calendar, we know that they're what matter most. So here's an easy way to think about this Look at your calendar and think through the last I don't know 60 days. If you're growing as a disciple of Christ, if that is a priority and you know that's going to be a big deal. How does that manifest in the plans you take for today? What shows on my calendar showing me growing with Christ? Like, where am I seeing Bible study time? Where am I seeing prayer group time? Where am I seeing, you know, personal devotion time? Where do you see those things? Because when you start doing a self audit there, with the focus on the truth, you can really see some immediate areas of impact and find that margin. Okay, now the last item to consider. So we're kind of we're walking through the boundaries, doing a self audit.

Chris Grainger: 24:05

The third one would be learning how to utilize the power of one small word. And it's no, because I'm telling you, if the devil can't make you bad, he's going to make you busy. We know that, and that may get a lot of amens on Sunday morning, but how often does that drive us into taking action? No is in itself a complete sentence and we should learn to use it. And the problem is I get it. I'm the same way. I like to please people, I want to serve, and we find ourselves committing to items that you should probably let pass by FOMO, fear of missing out or YOLO. You only live once. All those are great hashtags. They're terrible decision-making. They just are. They're terrible guidelines to make decisions.

Chris Grainger: 24:57

Learning how to say no to the things that are not in alignment with God's will is a sign of growth as a disciple. And also, if you learn how to say no, it gives you the chance to say yes to the things that truly matter. So I'm telling you that exercising the muscle of no is a great and purposeful, intentional way to construct margin in your life, because, at the end of the day, we have to recognize fellas. Margin is necessary If you want to grow as a disciple. It's necessary Because the demands of the world are not going to get any easier. It's going to push on you. It's going to push on you harder and harder and we have to remain grounded in God's truth. It's a great way, when we do that, to create the margin that we need to be the leaders that he intends.

Chris Grainger: 25:44

So again, with the question we talked about all week, is what's robbing the margin from your life? And I'm just, I'm prayerful that again, these are just kind of quick hitter episodes to kind of walk through, from a scriptural standpoint, these ideas. I'm hoping they give, they're giving you some insights into actions you can take today. And look, if you want to talk about this, if you want to have conversations about margin, head over to our community. Again, the line within that US. Click on offerings. Join a community. Again, thelinewithinus. Click on offerings. Join a community.

Chris Grainger: 26:16

Because inside the community, we have conversations, we have engagements, we have masterminds, we have Friday forges. We have opportunities for you to learn more on topics such as this. We are here to disciple leaders. That's it. We are helping you grow to be the leader that God intends you to be, and you need some help. You need some guys in your corner. You need some fellow brothers in Christ who will come alongside of you. They're going to push you a little bit. They're going to encourage you as well. They're going to help you stay focused on what truly matters most.

Chris Grainger: 26:54

So the lionwithinus is how you get connected with us. You can check out all our free resources, but I encourage you to hop over there to offerings and see the different ways you can jump in, and I would just challenge you start your 30-day trial of our LionWithinus community to get started. All right, guys, look, come on back on Friday. We'll have a good fun Friday episode with some health, wealth, self tips, all the fun Friday dad jokes, all the stuff we do each and every week. Give us a rating and review. Also, at thelinewithinus, you can click over to support and then from there you can donate as well as you can sponsor others to be part of our community. So it's great ways to serve, it's great ways to help support everything we're doing here at the Lion Within Us as we disciple leaders. All right, you guys, have a great day, get after it. We'll see you on Friday and remember to keep unleashing the lion within.