Your performance will drive you into a never-ending cycle of needing to do more. Trusting in His performance will drive you to rest.
Last week, while walking through the book of Romans, I was struck by something in the sermon.
Your performance will drive you into a never-ending cycle of needing to do more. Trusting in His performance will drive you to rest.
As I’ve pondered this quote over the past week I’ve started to form a framework that combines the best in productivity research and Gospel centrality. I have to admit, I’m a bit of a junky when it comes to cognitive research, especially in the productivity space. I find the way that God created us fascinating and inspiring. In a real sense, I believe that it’s imperative as Christian’s to start to understand our culture, the world around us, and how we can productively engage our lives for the Glory of the one true Kind.
The real question is this, are you stressed, overworked, tired, or have absolutely no margin in your life?
This is the American reality, at least it’s the reality that I observe and work through, each and every day. To put it in context, I’m a bi-vocational pastor with a family, and a job that requires on-call and off-hours work. My wife works/goes to school and our son is 2. Essentially, we negotiate our lives through shared calendars and the few special hours that we get to spend with each other. This, of course, is a season, but one that we have been hanging out in for the last two years. The reality is, our life doesn’t seem to the abnormal. If you replace the various aspects of our lives, with all the things that you have going on in your life, I’m confident that you will also see that your life is not that dissimilar to ours.
You might be asking at this point, why. Why even have this conversation, because this is just life. Working parents, young kids, life on life ministry. The reason behind starting this conversation is because unfortunately, (or fortunately), this is only the tip of the ice burg in terms what is competing for our cognitive, emotional and spiritual spaces. If the leading research is correct, our addictions to social media, text messaging, emails, and everything else that pulls our attention off the mission is staggering.
You may be wondering what that particular mission is and luckily it is far more simple than our lives.
Make the name of Jesus famous in everything.
I plan on writing through a lot of the processes and thoughts here. With each post, we will end with some Deep Work questions. Things to think about, ponder, and engage.
Deep Work Questions:
1. What in your life are you doing that is draining your energy?
2. What in your life do you do that recharges your battery?
3. Where do you spend the majority of your time?
4. What would you do if you could free up your time?
5. What systems do you have in place for organization and planning?
The Safeties Off 