I was at my desk when Jake called. 

He caught me midday at work to share how a difficult conversation he had initiated earlier that day had gone. I scurried away from my desk to a more private area, the office courtyard.

When Jake had finished recounting the celebratory parts — and the less favorable parts — of that conversation, he asked how my day was going. 

“It’ going pretty well. I’m movin’ a little slowly though today,” I remarked with a snag of guilt.

We concurred a shot of cold brew (just enough to speed me up for the remainder of work hours, but not enough to keep me from slumber later) was the best course forward. 

It saddened me later to realize that I had deemed my day mediocre because I wasn’t uber productive or efficient. Is that really how I want to judge my days — by how productive I am? Not in the least.

Paul urges us to not be conformed to the pattern of this world (Romans 12:2) — our thinking patterns included. Nowhere in the holy Scriptures do I find God judging anyone by their efficiency or how many tasks they marked off. Working as unto the Lord, yes. But productivity along, no. 

The Lord seems to care more about our connection to him. 

Seek the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength…

Abide in me, and I in you, or else you’ll produce no fruit…

To be clear, I do believe that we can abide in the Lord and get things done. It is a question of right ordering: will I value abiding in Jesus and obeying Him more than checking things off my list? I sure hope so: Jesus created us as human beings, not human doings. And, I surely don’t want to dismiss a prompt of the Holy Spirit just so to feel good about completing my to-do list. That is fruitless. I hope to apply what Solomon taught us in Ecclesiastes: everything under the sun is meaningless, save for fearing the Lord. 

Having weathered a string of days in which I was measuring the success of the day by my productivity output, I realized that such a measure made me feel far from Emmanuel, God with us. For me, no level of productivity is worth that cost. He gives us the gift of revealing himself and calling us to him; I refuse to put intimacy with Jesus, my sweet Savior, on the back burner. 

Practically speaking, this has meant taking a 2 minute “silence and stillness” ceasura in the middle of my work day. A time to pause in the midst of pings; a time to listen to the soft, still voice say things like joy only comes from me, or, you are my beloved daughter; remember who I say you are. These 2 minutes have a disproportionate effect (in the best possible way) on my connection with the Lord. It has also meant reprioritizing quiet time in the morning. I crave that time to be with the Lord, yet too often it is cut short or “life gets in the way.” What an ironic idiom, given that Jesus himself is life (John 14:6)!

I desire to listen to the checks and prompts of the Holy Spirit and obey those. That is how I want to measure this day and all that follow. 

Now, to check off posting this blog…just kidding 😉