What’s Your Vise?

Sunday morning retuning: Are you living a life of repentance?  The analogy from Sunday of a vise really grabbed a hold of me.  Sorry for the shameless pun.  It will be difficult to live a life of where you have turned away from your something until you have identified it.  Have you?

I grew up with a clear mental picture of the purpose of a vise.  My dad always had, and does to this day, a small vise on his workbench in the basement.  I remember as a kid putting things in it, cracking them down super tight and smashing them with a hammer.  Even when I would try to bend them back, they were never the same.  They were marked by the pounding and the grip of the vise itself.

If I were to ask you what your “vice” is [notice the different spelling] you would likely think of a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit that marks or plagues your Christian life.   I find it ineteresting that these two words, vise and vice have very different but associated meanings.  Sorry but I really like words and their meanings so you will have to bear with me.  I had never considered these two before.

Let me make this a little less academic and a lot more personal.  We are studying the concept of margin as a staff.  Our text is a book of that title, Margin, by Richard Swenson.  [There is a sample at the link.] He defines margin as “the space between our load and our limits.”  I liken the concept to the margins of a book.  Does you life have some space, like the margins of a book, or is it jammed full like the page of a book that has words going all the way to the edges so that you have to move your fingers to see them all?  If you are feeling like you do not have any, take solace if you can in the fact that what you are feeling is a societal epidemic.

Pastor Scott asked us a great question today, he has a gift at that you know.  “If you think back, when did margin start becoming a problem for you?”  As I pondered this, I could not remember when I first noticed it gone.  Only when I became aware of the concept several years ago, did I realize it had been crowded out at all.  This led me to the conclusion that at least in my thinking, margin-less living was fairly ingrained.  I confess that it is a vise for me, squeezing the life out of me, unless I am conscious of it, and war against it, or turn from it, which I routinely try to do.

Before you think, what’s the big deal with that, you have to understand that it effects not only the way I think, but by default every decision I make, every word I speak, every thing I do, unless I consciously choose to live a life of repentance.  Do you see where I am going?

Living with margin is my vise, or more truly one of them, but it might not be yours.  What is?  Once you have identified it, you have a much better chance of turning from it successfully.  I pray you will today, for God’s glory and your good.

Jesus, help me and my friends live lives of repentance.  Thank You for Your light which shines the way, and Your strength which enables us to walk it, one step behind You.  

In Christ,

Pastor Timothy