The most crucial pillar of productivity is not the system you use, the tricks that help you focus, or the way you schedule your day around your energy levels.
It’s in seeing the truth and letting the truth drive you.
And the truth is that the Christian life should be one characterized by joy. So, too, with our productivity. We should strive to do as much good as we can because we have such abounding joy and crave to have even more.
What Drives Us?
We often have a boring and obligation-driven view of getting things done.
Some of us view daily productivity as a battle against tidal waves of tasks seeking to drown us in stress. For others of us, it’s a more humdrum, monotonous grind that we tough out with willpower and duty.
We talk about discipline and the value of our limited time. We don’t want to let a single second slip away.
We push and push and push – but why? What is driving us?
Is Your Work an Ought-To or a Get-To?
When we look at the Christian life as full of have-to’s and ought-to’s, it then becomes natural for us to lose our excitement about life. We view our good works here as uninspiring and boring – or as duty-driven and sacrificial. We rely on discipline to muscle through our days.
But that’s not the way God sees things and it’s not the way he wants us to look at life.
In truth, the redeemed life isn’t about have-to’s or ought-to’s – it’s all about the get-to’s.
For Our Good
The truth is that God’s commands are for our good. And that includes being good stewards of our time.
In Deuteronomy 10, we’re instructed to “serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good.”
Waking up every day and participating with God in what he’s doing in the world should be a source of joy not drudgery. It should be our delight.
The God who knit us together knows what will truly bring us joy, and he’s told us how to live in order to maximize our joy.
And this joy not only is a benefit in and of itself, but it provides a much more satisfying and effective form of motivation.
Photo Credit: Matt J Newton (Creative Commons)
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