Cory Lebovitz

When was the last time you helped someone move? There was a season of life when it felt like at least one Friday or Saturday a month was booked up with helping someone move. I am sure you have had your fair share of times hauling boxes up and down stairs for a friend. Every once in a while I will ask my wife if helping people move is on my Murtaugh list yet…

From all of my times being part of the moving crew I noticed one thing again and again…so much so that I think it is probably universal to the moving process. That one thing? I call it the Tetris experience.  You know the drill; everyone gathers to survey the belongings and evaluate the size of the truck. There might be some minor debate…

“There is no way all of this will fit in the truck!”

“Of course it will, you just have to pack the truck the right way!”

Eventually everyone gets to work, attempting to pack the truck in such a way that everything fits in one run. It is one big game of Tetris.

What I find so interesting is that at the end of the day the truck always seems full. I go and help a friend with a 2 bedroom apartment move and the truck ends up full. That same size truck is used while helping a friend pack up a 3 bedroom house and the result is the same – full truck. Over time I have come to realize that no matter the amount of stuff my friends have it will always seem to fill the capacity of the truck they rent.

It is a principle we cannot avoid – our stuff will fill up the space we have available for it, leaving no extra capacity. It is not an optical illusion – it is simply the pull of life.

Many of us allow our spiritual lives, families, businesses or volunteer efforts to default to this principle. We feel like we have no margin to improve and grow. We consider the capacity we have available right now and allow the “stuff” of life to take up all of our capacity, leaving no margin.

• Our workload expands and fills the time we have available to accomplish it
• Our pursuit of Jesus expands to fill the capacity of our spiritual hunger
• Our teams grow to the capacity of the opportunities and responsibilities given them

Sure we could create margin if we needed to…but why? Things are fine as is…who has need for margin, right?

What if God has more for you?

What if you are inadvertently settling for less in life because you assume your capacity is fine as-is and you have no need for margin? What if God is waiting on you to create the time/space/margin for the next thing he wants to do in your life?

No matter where you are in life right now I believe there are 2 things true for you:

1. God wants to entrust you with more responsibility, but is waiting on you to create margin.
2. God is able to expand your capacity, but you have to be willing to grow.