I’m finishing up a great little book by Richard Swenson called Margin. You may have read it. It’s a super mega jumbo seller sort of book. It’s part of our prep with WorldVenture (yes…we get homework from the mission).

Swenson, a medical doctor, gives an insightful look at the emotional, physical, relational, and spiritual damage going on today in relationship to how overloaded we are.

In one sense this is not a new observation. But there is one axiom he offers that I found quite challenging. He says that all progress moves towards complexity.

This flies in the face of conventional wisdom which views progress as only bringing about advancements with no downside. In Swenson’s view, progress, for all the truly helpful things that it brings, also packs a huge downside: left unchecked it will overrun our created limits. We can only handle so much. Progress has no regard for our emotional, physical, relational, or spiritual health. It is only concerned with more, faster, better, now.

It’s been a great read so far, causing me to think about where my margins are now, and how I will protect them on the international mission field, a place where both vitality and burnout seem to loom large.