One of the gifts of margin is the time we have to spend with God. When there is whitespace in our lives, time with God does not feel like something we need to check off our to-do list. It becomes a space we look forward to.
When my life had little to no margin, prayer was the first thing that went out the window. I would even schedule a time to be with God but would cancel most days because something else that was "urgent" had come up. With no margin, I took from prayer to give attention to other pressing things.
Then, one morning I was struggling. So when I left my house for work, I just said the Lord's Prayer while driving. This turned into 20 minutes of uninterrupted time with God. It was eye-opening how malnourished my soul was.
That one encounter with God has turned into a holy habit in my life. I have not listened to the radio or talked on my phone for the past several years while driving to work. I just spend time with God. I talk about my day, pray for the meetings I have or the people I will meet. I pray for my family and the people that God puts on my heart. I will even ask for forgiveness for my anger towards other drivers (there were some issues there.) Sometimes, I am just silent and sit in God's presence, waiting for him to speak.
I was telling a chaplain friend about this practice, and he said to me, "Oh, that just a sweet, sweet time with God." It really has been.
The author of Atomic Habits, James Clear says, "We should optimize for the starting line, not the finish line."
So, that's what I do by spending those few minutes each day with God while I drive to work. The blessing that has come from that is a loss of guilt for not praying as much as I would like, and often it is easier to accept the interruptions that come throughout my day. That has grown into other prayer practices in my life, such as praying when I read through social media, hear sirens, or when I read the news.
When we create margin in our lives, the interruptions to be attentive to God's voice are a blessing.
It is a sweet, sweet time.
