In the ’90s, I heard a radio commercial that announced something I’d never heard before. The voice-over said, “Go to http://www.houstonweather.com/today “ My first thought was, ”What is that nonsense?! That’ll never catch on.”
In college, my friend told me her email address was jeh1234@unix.tamu.edu. “That’s ridiculous,” I told her, “There’s no way I’ll ever remember all those letters and numbers.”
Then came the iPhone. “What’s the point of apps?” I asked, “I can just Google the information on my desktop?”
I’m clearly not a good judge of what technology trends have value, and I’m definitely not a good judge of my own worth. Just as I negated the value of technology I didn’t understand, I negate my value as a wife and mom because I use the fickle metric of productivity to measure it.
But friends, misjudging tech trends isn’t our biggest issue.
Our bigger concern is allowing productivity to define our worth, which hurts us in two major ways:
1. We feel proud of how much we’ve accomplished.
As high-achieving women who value efficiency and a completed checklist, we get excited when we’re productive, i.e. Look at all the errands I ran! Look at all those tasks I finished! Productivity makes us feel like awesome logistics ninjas.
2. We feel like we’re Never Enough because we didn’t accomplish everything.
As high-achieving women who value efficiency and a completed checklist, we get sad when there’s more on our to-do list than we’re able to finish. We negate all the work we’ve done because there’s still more to do, so we feel discouraged and incompetent. Or we feel Never Enough because productivity for us looks different in this season because of health issues or the fact that we’re keeping little people alive so our checklists go unchecked.
In both cases—whether we accomplish a lot or a little—our value fluctuates. We place our value in our productivity, but is this the right place for it?
Productivity doesn’t have anything to do with our worth.
Thomas Merton describes our struggle so perfectly in New Seeds of Contemplation
, “Blinded by their desire for ceaseless motion, for a constant sense of achievement, famished with a crude hunger for results, for tangible success, they work themselves into a state in which they cannot believe that they are pleasing God unless they are busy with a dozen jobs at the same time.” (The FCC requires that I tell you that I’m an Amazon Affiliate, which means I earn a bit of commission on each sale. But don’t worry there’s no added cost to you!)
We are far more familiar with a world of produce, hustle, and achieve than we are with grace, joy, and rest, with value = productivity rather than value = created by God.
But friends, productivity can take its rightful place.
Here’s the deal: God desires us to do good works. In fact, He planned a long time ago all the work we’d do. So being productive and doing good things isn’t bad. However, productivity is just one aspect of our lives, not the whole of who we are.
The weight of our worth is not meant to be carried by something so fragile.
So how do we put productivity in its place?
I wish I could give you a five-point plan entitled, “Moving Away from Productivity and Toward Grace,” but grace doesn’t work that way. What I can tell you is how it looks for me. It’s as simple and hard as this:
I die to what I think makes me valuable and ask God to remind me of who I am in Him…every day.
Actually, every minute that I feel like I’m “losing” value because I’m not producing, I have to remind myself of His love for me regardless of what I do or don’t do. This is hard because I’m a woman wired to do more and try harder. The idea of relinquishing my value to intangible grace is terrifying.
But there it is.
I’m valuable to God because He made me in love and because it cost so much for Him to bring me home. Productivity doesn’t give me value. God does.
Productivity has its place, and it’s not the keeper of our worth.
In the 1990s and 2000s, I learned about web addresses, email, and iPhone apps and thought “That’ll never catch on.” I’m not the best judge of the value of tech trends and I’m not the best judge of the worth of my soul.
But I know the best Judge to determine our value: our God and Heavenly Father. Try-hard girl, He is just crazy about you. When God sees you, He sees a woman of great worth, whether you felt productive today or not.
Excellent. It reminded me of “Cheaper By the Dozen”. On visiting her parents in California, Lillian Gilbreth needed to make some courtesy visits. When she returned, she said proudly how efficient she had been in accomplishing them so quickly. Her mother commented that perhaps she had been “too efficient”. That’s like us, God sometimes has to remind us that the number of things we accomplish isn’t as important as accomplishing them in a way pleasing to Him.
Dianne, amen! That is so true — we always please Him by serving and loving from the heart, even if our pace is slow! -jill
Great reminder and catchy title! Your statement “I die to what I think makes me valuable and ask God to remind me of who I am in Him…every day” is so important. We are more because He says we are. We are not the sum total of our job or our role, whatever it may be. We are, because He made us worthwhile.
Cindy, amen and amen! -jill
The recovering (sometimes backsliding) people pleaser in me agrees with you. It is important to find my value in Christ alone!
Tiffany, you are right now: our value is in Christ not in what we accomplish in a day! -jill