Busy is a Bully: Recognizing the Myth and Recovering True Productivity

Everyone can feel it, the crushing need to do more. To get from one place to another in the fastest way possible. To take on more classes, work more hours, pick up another sport, or volunteer for one more opportunity. We are drowning ourselves in things we think we can control. Instead of slowing down, we take on more, believing we are invincible and can handle anything. But only when the house is a disaster and we have another shift at work in five minutes do we realize that we may have taken on too much.

I have felt it too. Between school, work, family, and social commitments, I have always had plenty on my plate. My time was almost always full. Then I stepped into another job and came to understand the word busy in an entirely new way. It was harder to stay on top of things, but, at first I made it work. Slowly, that difficulty increased. I was going to school on Mondays and babysitting immediately afterward, working one job on Tuesdays, interning on Wednesdays, going to school and babysitting on Thursdays, attending a drama club on Fridays, trying to maintain a social life on Saturdays, and engaging with church and youth group on Sundays. I was convinced I could do it all, but suddenly it felt like there wasn’t enough time to do anything at all. Everything, even what was typically simple, became overwhelming and stressful, like swimming upstream, and I wasn’t doing anything well, just treading water enough to get it done. Instead of my productivity increasing, it decreased dramatically.

Culture is crying out, insisting we should do more. Volunteer for another event, sign up for another class, or plan to hang out with another friend. While these may be good desires and activities, sometimes they hurt us in the long term. When priorities are messy and stressful, scattered and out of place, we no longer want to do any of the work. Many people explode at this point, realizing how much there is to do and how little time there is to do it. If they don’t explode, the stress eats them from the inside out, causing anxiety and depression to seep into all the once life-giving activities. Worry has become a prevalent issue in today’s teens and adults, and it may have a direct tie to our need to do everything.

Productivity culture is majorly impacting our actual drive to be productive and our ability to cope with all aspects of life. Because of the push to stay busy, individuals are facing burnout and mental health issues. Society cannot continue to function in this way, and Christians must proactively look at our God-given limitations to understand where this concept of productivity intersects with the call to glorify God.

This heightened level of busyness has become the societal norm. To quote John Mark Comer in his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World, “What do people normally answer when you ask the customary, ‘How are you?’ ‘Oh, good - just busy’” (Comer 21). Comer observes a pattern, namely that the word busy is used too often in the English language. It has become our automatic answer, and no one bats an eye upon hearing it. Instead, the unexpected answer might be to hear someone genuinely admit they are struggling or, even more, that they are well rested. Busyness, however, should not be a constant state. This should not be commonplace or acceptable. Yes, there are busy seasons, the beginning of school, the end of a quarter at work, or the time before a vacation, but we should not be living in those seasons year-round. When we are packing for vacation, running around the house, and grabbing items, the busyness fulfills a purpose - the promise of relaxation in the near future. Yet when there is no visible end to the busyness, it becomes overwhelming.

Dr. Richard A. Swenson also speaks to this idea in his book Margin. He talks about how this busyness turns into a marginless lifestyle where the words are all crammed onto the page. He writes, “If you are homeless, we send you to a shelter. If you are penniless, we offer you food stamps. If you are breathless, we connect you to oxygen. But if you are marginless, we give you yet one more thing to do” (Swenson 13). Though our society has attempted to remedy other issues, it has not yet found a healthy way to deal with busyness. Instead, we are told to load one more thing onto our plate. As a result, frazzled, exhausted individuals continually add just one more obligation even though we were already doing enough. After all, we need to volunteer at church and help a friend move on top of working, grocery shopping, and raising children. We get stuck in the hamster wheel of busy weeks and too many tasks, unknowing that we are just continuing to run in the same place.

That said, this cycle is not always tied to the intention of helping others. Sometimes we pick up overtime to buy a new laptop or phone, seeking to satisfy a yearning for bigger and better. The human desire to see a larger number in our savings account can become the end goal. Swenson writes, “If we have ten times more material abundance than our ancestors, why are we not ten times more content and fulfilled?” (15). This need to make more money controls our sense of productivity. If we work more, we are more productive, then we get paid more, and then we buy more, only to find that we want even more. The pursuit of overtime is endless and can begin to own us. The work must be completed better, faster, and easier than ever before. That way we can do even more of it, so the numbers look better and the company makes more money.

In his book You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News Kelly M. Kapic talks about how expectations have shifted our idea of productivity. He writes, “Sitting at the dinner table with my wife and kids, when they ask me how my day was, I instantly think about ‘how little I got done.’ ... How many classes did I teach, or what did I read, or how many words did I write? For you, the measurables will be different. How many sales calls completed? How many widgets made? How many lawns mowed? How much code written? What projects have I moved forward” (Kapic 120). Here Kapic points out one of the main reasons for America’s focus on productivity. What did I achieve today? Did I meet my expectations for how hard I was going to work or how much time I was going to spend on a project for work? When we do not meet those requirements, whether they were self-imposed or assigned to us, we see ourselves and our day as a failure.

To be an American in the workforce is to strive for productivity and to get the most done in the least amount of time. To be an American student in high school and beyond is to strive for productivity, get the best grades, work, and play a sport (while also being captain of the club, volunteering at church, and consistently considering what your resume and college applications need to stand out). To be an American in general is to strive after productivity, even if it is only productivity for the sake of more leisure time later in the day. We must rush to get in and out of the grocery store faster, so we can get to the next task faster, and then the next, and the next. The ideal of American productivity is driving us into the ground.

At this point, our worldly productivity is directly tied to our sense of achievement. If we have not done well, we have not achieved in life even though those who came before us did less and led happy, fulfilled lives. The rampant need to do more has caused us to dive into the ocean without a floatation device. Overall, the pursuit of productivity has shifted our perspective of the word. A concept that originally encouraged hard work has become a need for more commitments and more material things. Higher productivity has come to mean busier lives and less margin. Ultimately, there is no longer much space to breathe when we pursue the world’s idea of productivity.

How do we get ourselves to this point? Why do we think that we are invincible and able to do anything and everything without limitations? Kapic addresses this, writing, “The odd thing is that, even when we run into our inevitable limits, we often hang on to the delusion that if we just work harder, if we simply squeeze tighter, if we become more efficient, we can eventually regain control” (5). Our world could already crumble under the weight of what we are expected to do, but we decide to take on more things. Maybe we chose to take on these things to have a greater sense of control over our time and our schedule. Maybe we fear missing out on the extra game night or the family get-together. No matter what our reason, we do it anyway. Then we’ve committed to so many things that none of them feel valuable; we are spread so thin that even finishing one task is too much, and we have no control at all.

One possible reason we believe that we can get everything done is the recent focus on flexibility. When someone looks for a new job there is an emphasis on options, such as working from home or choosing your own schedule. In his book, Redeeming Work: A Guide to Discovering God’s Calling for Your Career, Dr. Bryan J. Dik comments, “Collectively, workers are giving us security for greater flexibility in proportions that are increasing by the day. ‘Flexibility’ here means that people have more options than ever regarding when, where, and for whom their work is performed. This stems from a dramatic rise in contingent work arrangements in which companies hire contractors for short-term projects rather than loyal employees to whom they commit for the long haul” (36). Dr. Dik highlights a cultural shift in the world of work, from one long employment with a single company where an employee has built relationships and trust to a metaphorical hopping from one thing to the next, hoping that it will fill enough time, yield a bigger paycheck, or provide enough worker satisfaction. The result is widespread discontentment, and such a fixation on flexibility causes people to only look for jobs that fit their requirements, whether that is the ability to work from home or decide on their own schedule.

Unfortunately, the opposite is happening, flexible jobs are getting filled with increasing speed, and ultimately the fixation on flexibility is making us less resilient. People expect a constant catering to their desires and flexibility. Not only that, but these companies have to crack down and become less flexible. Anyone can see the irony here, fragile mentality affects productivity just like it has affected flexibility. The focus on achieving peak flexibility at all times is ruining our ability to be productive.

In exploring the problem, anyone can see the way that it is affecting humanity mentally and emotionally. The cultural focus on productivity is tearing us away from God, encouraging self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Culture is screaming at us, demanding we do not need the help of a higher power, but rather we simply need to be in control of our own schedules and our own bank accounts to achieve ultimate security. However, Christians are supposed to be counter-cultural, especially when the culture is lying to us.

When we look for a pattern for our productivity we should immediately go to one thing: the Bible. In Genesis 1 and 2, God creates the heavens and the earth, it is a familiar passage to almost any American. In Genesis 2:1-3 it says, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation" (English Standard Version). It should be no surprise that God has not experienced an issue with productivity. He is the all-mighty and sinless Creator. The very nature of the Lord is that he is sinless and without fault. Even then he took a day of rest. The almighty Creator took a day to rest even when He definitely did not have to. Kapic talks about this idea in depth, saying, “If there were anyone who could legitimately ask for unceasing industry, it would be the Creator of heaven and earth... Strong and weak, rich and poor, male and female, all were to be free at least one day in seven, free for unhindered worship, refreshment, and renewal. Amid the endless demands of life and labor, one day a week was treated as different, reminding Israel that God, not creatures, upholds the world and calls it good. We were designed not only to work but also to rest, just as God rested after six days of creative work” (Kapic 219). The focus of a Sunday has become either catching up from the week before or working extra for the week ahead. People are not giving themselves a day to rest and recline in God’s presence, they are just pushing themselves onto the next thing. Once people realize the need for a day of rest they recognize their finitude. They are not their own gods who can control everything. Instead, they need to rely on the true God, who offers rest to the overworked

Later in the Bible, when Moses goes to Mount Sinai he comes back to the Israelites with the Ten Commandments. Among these are rules on how to treat your neighbors and the Lord, but the fourth deals directly with His day of rest, the Sabbath. In verses eight through eleven God says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord Blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (English Standard Version Ex. 20:8-11). God’s directive to the Israelites was to save one day of the week for no work, the day He specifically set aside. Before Israel even had land to call their own He set patterns and rules for them to follow.

The Ten Commandments are still important. They were the ten founding rules of Israel and they are still seen as important directives from God. In this way, humanity, Christians specifically, should still be honoring them as direct words from the Lord. This means that we labor and work hard for six days, going to school or doing our nine-to-five, but on the seventh day, Sunday, we rest. We go to church and ignore any emails from our boss or calls to our work phone. We do not check Canvas or work on any assignments. We use that day for Him, whether that is spending time in fellowship with other Christians, praying, or even taking a nap. Culture directly opposes this idea. The concept of taking a day to worship and relax in the presence of the Lord will be seen as lazy. But Christians are charged to follow this rule, no matter what the world and culture attempt to tell us.

Not only did God set this pattern and encourage His people to follow it, but Jesus lived it out. In reality, Christ was the busiest person to ever walk the earth. Charged with an eternally important mission, he traveled constantly, performing signs and wonders to prove his majesty and might. He was the most rightfully busy person to ever exist, and yet, he took his time and never rushed, ever giving into the urgency he may have felt, he took his time and connected with people on a personal and emotional level, making them feel heard, known, and loved.

One example of this can be found in Luke 18, “As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, ‘Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.’ He called out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’” (Luke 18:35-39). Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, where he was going to be crucified and he would die for the sins of all the world. We can only imagine his thoughts and feelings. Was he nervous? At peace? Did he drag his feet on the dirt paths? Many of us would.

Either way, Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem to face the end of his earthly mission. As he was on the road he attracted a crowd, most likely containing his disciples, bystanders, skeptics, and believers. A blind man was sitting by the road, begging for money. When he hears the commotion of the crowd he asks what is going on and someone tells him that Jesus is passing.

This blind beggar had heard the stories; almost everyone had by then. Jesus healed a lame man. He multiplied loaves and fish to feed five thousand. And the blind man sees a way out of the darkness he lives in. He is a beggar in a patriarchal society that idealizes strength, and thus, he is no doubt hopeless and destitute (Simfukwe). He knows that Jesus can heal him, and even if he can’t it’s worth a shot. So he calls out and begs Jesus to see him.

The passage continues, “Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ ‘Lord, I want to see,’ he replied” (English Standard Version Luke 18:39-41).

The crowd with Jesus takes notice of the blind beggar and tells him to be quiet. Jesus is a very important person who does not have time to deal with blind men sitting on the side of the road. They judge the man for trying to get Jesus’s attention. However, this does not scare the beggar away; if anything it eggs him on, and we can imagine him shouting louder before his chance is gone. In reality, if ever there was a moment when a lack of response could be justified or excused, this was it. If ever the crowd could be seen as justified for begging Jesus to carry on, this was it.

And yet, Jesus stops. He orders the people who just rebuked the beggar to bring him to him. As they do, Jesus takes the time to solicit this man’s needs and desires. The beggar has one chance to get what he wants. He could ask to be rich and famous and treat Jesus as a one-wish dispensing genie (Simfukwe). But without hesitation, he says just one thing, “Lord, I want to see” (English Standard Version Luke 18:41b). And not only does Jesus stop, he listens. The passage continues, “Jesus said to him, ‘Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God” (English Standard Version Luke 18:42-43).

When Jesus heals the beggar’s sight, this formerly blind man immediately joins Jesus’s followers, praising and worshiping the Son of David, the man who took the time out of his important plans and busy schedule to heal his sight. And not only this, but when others saw this miracle they too praised God for the miraculous healing that had taken place.

Kondo Simfukwe is a pastor at Mission Point Community Church in Warsaw, Indiana. He preached a sermon over this passage on September 17th, 2024 as a part of the church’s series titled Busy Jesus. He summarized Jesus’s actions as this: “Jesus stopped. To live like Jesus means to learn to stop for the hurting and broken and marginalized and socially invisible and the people that our culture has labeled irrelevant and pushed into the background. To live like Jesus means to learn to stop for the most hurting in our world, especially when we are busy” (Simfukwe). Busyness is an undeniable part of life. By following Jesus’s example in this passage and slowing down for the hurting and broken, we are working against culture. The busyness is no longer so self-centered. Instead, it is focused on helping and honoring others, and by this, therefore, honoring God and bringing glory to Him. However, this is not the only key to understanding how to live an intentionally productive life.

Everyone has limits. When someone is lifting weights he may be able to handle more weight than the person who lifts after him. It’s the same with the amount of responsibilities we are able to carry. Some people can balance a job, a sport, and school all at the same time and thrive while doing it. Another person will struggle to simply balance a job and school. Everyone has his own limits on how productive he can be. In his book You’re Only Human Kapic names these limits, calling this concept finitude.

Kapic defines the concept in this way, “The state or condition of being finite; the condition of being subject to limitations” (Kapic 4). Ultimately it's recognizing that there are limitations; one person cannot possibly do everything. Those who try are overwhelmed and overly busy, and they don’t have time for any of the things they signed up to do. Their hubris blinds them to their limits. In reality, to be human is to be finite.

That is not to say that we cannot go beyond these limits. After all, in Philippians 4:13 it says, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (ESV). But we cannot simply quote this verse and expect to suddenly be able to conquer more. Instead, this verse stems from a consistent pattern of following the Lord and submitting to His will. Only when we seek the Lord and ask for His strength will we find ourselves able to take on even more tasks or activities. When we rely on our own human strength, we fall into a pattern of attempted control rooted in selfishness. Once we do that, control becomes an idol and God is no longer the focus, meaning we will not find his strength when we realize we have taken on too much.

Dr. Richard Swenson also speaks to this idea in his book Margin. He writes, “The spontaneous tendency of our culture is to inexorably add detail to our lives: one more option, one more commitment, one more expectation, one more purchase, one more debt, one more change, one more job, one more decision. We must now deal with more ‘things per person’ than at any other time in history. Yet one can comfortably handle only so many details in his or her life. Exceeding this threshold will result in disorganization or frustration” (54). Our tendency to take on one more thing leads to burnout. When we ignore our finitude, the odds of this burnout disabling us increase exponentially. We should not sacrifice our lives for the sake of our schedules. When we do we find ourselves in a place that does not reflect or focus on Christ. Instead of truly following Jesus, even church becomes another location and commitment on the calendar.

What is truly making the issue surrounding our understanding of finitude worse is our focus on material things. Americans have an insatiable need for the next thing that they can pick up off the shelf. In his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer presents and examines the chokehold consumer culture has on American society and culture as a whole. At one point he considers 9/11, observing President Bush’s response to. Comer writes, “But I also remember President Bush’s speech to the nation a few weeks later. [...] [H]e warned against terrorists ‘frightening our nation to the point where... people don’t shop.’ God forbid a tragedy like 9/11 keep us from hitting up the mall for a new pair of Nikes” (Comer 183).

This is all too accurate and frankly a bit frightening seeing as a large part of American culture is shopping for things we don’t even need. After all, when we have more physical things we have better lives, or so we believe. And, what do we need to do in order to acquire more things? We need to earn money, and one of the only ways for that money to be acquired is through the process of working and filling our bank accounts. The cultural focus on physical stuff is a thinly veiled cultural focus on wealth, and this focus on wealth leads to an unhealthy focus on working as much as possible. Not only do Americans seek after stuff, but we also long for a better, longer, more exciting vacation or experience, and, again, money and the endless cycle of toiling for that money is the ticket that opens these doors of what so many consider opportunity.

However, by way of contrast, in Matthew 19:21-24 Jesus talks to a man who has apparently followed the law perfectly. Matthew writes, “Jesus said to him, ‘If you would be so perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions” (English Standard Version Matt 19:21-22).

Jesus looked at this perfect man and named the one thing he would not do: get rid of everything, every pair of designer shoes and every overpriced phone. Sell it all and give the money to the poor so that you have nothing. Then follow Him. The society and cultural landscape are different, but the lesson remains true. You don’t need any money or possessions in order to obey this simple command to follow, to trust, and to believe that He will take care of you. But the rich man in the parable is unwilling to do this. He won’t sell everything. Maybe he earned his wealth, maybe he inherited it, but, regardless, he considers it his own, and he sees it as essential to life. Jesus calls him to a life of simplicity, a life where He provides what is needed when it is needed.

This is not to say that Christians in modern society are necessarily called to this same extreme. After all, we do need housing and food, which cost money, and our bank accounts can be used for good and for His glory. What does hold true, and what Jesus is saying to us is that we don’t need all of the extra things. There is no reason to buy a new water bottle when the one you have is perfectly fine. Therefore, perhaps you do not need to work the extra hours and haul in the overtime to make ends meet. You definitely should not be overworking yourself for extra spending money. He calls us to simplify our finances, whether that is our monetary finances or our spending of time.

Alongside striving for simplicity, we should consider our priorities. Those who regularly think of success generally talk about priorities. The ranking of our tasks dictates what we get done first and how much time we spend on each task we must take on. Yet, if we take inventory of our priorities we find another meaning. Our priorities clearly reveal values.

Let’s say that you break your life into categories: your spouse, work, faith, friends, self, and children. If you were to rate these priorities from a cultural perspective it may look something along these lines: (1) work, (2) self, (3) your spouse, (4) children, (5) friends, (6) faith. If you were to rate these priorities from a Christian perspective it should look something along these lines: (1) faith, (2) your spouse, (3) children, (4) friends, (5) self, (6) work.

There’s a difference between these lists. If you look at them they are nearly completely swapped. Work and faith take opposite sides of the spectrum. This is the way that almost everyone looks at a list like this, a ticker of importance from one to infinity, nothing more than a checklist that has the most important things on it. Though the second list is ultimately more balanced and better for us, neither checklist gets our priorities 100% right. Richard Swenson argues for a different, though harder to manage, approach in his book Margin. He writes,

“We cannot achieve balance by stacking our priorities one on top of another, even though this is a common practice [...] [I]t fits better to think of God as central to everything then build outward from that point. We do not love God, then spouse, then children, then self, then church. We love God, spouse, children, self, and church all at the same time” (188).

What Swenson suggests is hard to visualize, but one must choose to think about it like this. Imagine that a young child is ordering soft-serve ice cream, and he is faced with two options, chocolate or vanilla. The child is having a hard time deciding which is better because both have positive and desirable aspects. This is when the parent reminds the child that the option of a chocolate and vanilla swirl exists. This way the child can appreciate both of these things at the same time. One could apply this same principle to Swenson’s concept.

He goes on to write, “Similarly, we do not love God 100 percent, spouse 95 percent, children 90 percent, church 80 percent. God’s standard requires that we all of them all of the time” (Swenson 188). This is where our understanding of this concept gets more complicated. The child is not supposed to love chocolate more than vanilla. Instead, the child must appreciate something around six different flavors of soft serve at the same time. As humans, this is hard to do. We are bound to prioritize one thing over another and it is only through the help of God that we find balance in our priorities.

At this point, relying on God is the only way humans can reach full productivity. Purpose cannot be found in a broken, sinful world that continually cries out an admonishment to keep working or do more. That leads to destruction. The devil is in the world, seeking to snatch and devour, to corrupt work and stifle the beauty of friendship, family, and even church. Only by the Lord’s help can priorities be recaptured and reshaped into something that honors Him. His calling is toward a well-balanced and rounded life that includes plenty of time for work and success but also a heavy priority on the value of His gifts.

Only by accepting and pursuing Him can mankind find the fullness of potential and joy.. Work is not of the devil, in fact, it is a gift. However, like all things, it can be used by the devil and become an idol. Giving God this concept of productivity involves submission to Him, and, in the end, it results in long-term rest and joy with the right priorities. This creates a healthy relationship with one’s workplace and coworkers. It leads to a flourishing relationship with one’s spouse, and it cultivates parents who are thriving, positive role models for their children. People who learn to strike this balance become better friends. All of this is because boundaries make for margin, and margin leaves space for God-given human limits and turning to Him, which unlocks true life in Christ. Ultimately, striving for simplicity and realizing the right priorities solidifies a secure identity in Christ, and this infiltrates all other identities, whether at work or at home with one’s and friends. Productivity does not have to be a mindset or a way of life, it can be just one of many factors that influence the drive to do work that pleases God.

I have a hard time understanding this myself; as I illustrated before, I take on too many things. I struggle to believe there is a limit to the things that I can get done. Finitude is not a concept I think of often enough. Then I crash and burn, leading to everything from mental breakdowns to messed up tasks. God uses these hurdles to help me in my walk with Him. He tells me I am taking on too much when suddenly I cannot do anything well at all. These moments when I am exhausted by everything are exactly when He shows me how much I’ve needed Him all along. This is not only true of me. It is true of mankind. It is the human condition and the human need.

This is an anti-cultural movement. For those who are drowning in work, school, sport seasons, social activities, and volunteering, the Lord offers rest. No, it is not an easy step to take; people will scoff or question; they may even whisper about you, doubting your intentions. But, as Christians we should perhaps welcome those whispers. The judgment of others generally means that we are going against a secular culture that does not love or glorify God.

To do this we need to remember and recognize the problem we are facing. We are overextending ourselves. Chaos is ruling our lives and the lives of those around us. The world is not remedying this problem anytime soon. In fact, most are just exaggerating it. The lies that we are not achieving enough have made us believe that we can and should do everything, and yet, everything is way too much, devastatingly much. We have bought into a lie.

Not only this, but Christians must realize that they are working in environments that are ever-changing. For many individuals, remote work has only been a viable option for around four years, and yet, it has become the way that most people have to log hours. Home has become the new office, and work never ends. The newfound focus on flexibility restricts Americans into tight boxes without space for healthy distance or habits.

In order to remedy this issue, Christians must look to Christ and to the Bible. We should think of God’s work creating the universe. We should accept the pattern he set before us with one day to rest from the good work we are doing the rest of the week. Not only this, but we should also be looking at the life of Christ and realizing what it means to love others more than your own success. Stopping means you care for the people who need God the most. Even if we have important tasks ahead and a busy schedule demanding our attention, stopping and listening can mean the world to someone else.

So going forward we must remember a handful of important truths. One of these is the word finitude. Our limits are given to us by God; they are a part of his very good and purposeful design for our lives. When we hit these limits and try to push past them, everything comes crumbling down. A part of submitting to the Lord is recognizing these limits and doing our best to live within them and honor Him at the same time. We can do this specifically by honoring our Sabbath and keeping it holy and for the Lord.

Alongside these points, we need to strive for simplicity in our lives, recognizing that we are living in a culture focused on consumerism. Most of the time we have already accumulated more than enough stuff and don’t need to reach for a higher number in our bank account. Instead, the fullness of life comes into focus on the simpler things: family, friends, church, and the Lord. With this comes the restructuring of our priorities, and a new way of balancing and crying out to God that comes with that.

Overall, culture pushes for productivity and results. Christians need to slow down and recognize that we do not need to be doing twenty things per hour; in fact, we are incapable of doing so. Instead, we must be counter-cultural and work with intention. Kondo Simfukwe summarized this idea well saying, “Busy ought never to become the boss that bullie[s] us around. What matters most ought to matter most no matter when. What Matters most ought to matter most no matter what. Busy is not the boss” (Simfukwe).

Modern productivity is a bully, pushing, shoving, and forcing misery upon all of Creation, all of the time gaslighting and telling us that we are doing more, making more, and becoming better humans. This secular ideal is unhealthy for everyone, even those who seem to be thriving, rich, and famous. Only those who seek rest in the Father can find true purpose and achieve true rest and success. Those who abide by His rules are the ones who achieve true productivity. Ultimately, the modern view on productivity majorly impacts the actual amount of worthwhile work being done. Due to the cultural pressure to always be doing something, all kinds of people from all walks of life face burnout and mental health issues. Christians must choose to stop functioning this way and instead must work to understand all of the factors that will lead to a fulfilling and God-honoring life. Though culture is bullying us into thinking doing more faster than ever is better, it is past time to take a step back and cry out to God to heal our view of productivity and the world.

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Bibliography:

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