What's Best Next

You are here: Home / Archives for 8 - Christian Living / a Personal Discipleship

Gratitude and Productivity

by

What does gratitude have to do with productivity?

In a very real sense, gratitude is the completion of our productivity.

If we work and produce, but never appreciate the fruit of our labors, we never really benefit from them. We are always just on to the next thing. And then, what’s the point?

But even better than finding satisfaction in the work we have done is recognizing the source of our ability to achieve and the source of any success we have accomplished. And that is the grace of God. This is true in our spiritual and economic endeavors. “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). “You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18).

Without gratitude, we are not truly being productive because we are not ultimately being honest. We are overlooking God, who deserves the credit and recognition for all of the good things in our lives — including the things that have come about through our efforts in productivity.

So be truly productive this week by enjoying a break, feeling a deep sense of gratitude to God, and giving him thanks.

How Productivity Practices Help You Pray

by

How often has someone emailed you requesting prayer while they are on a missions trip? Or for a period of time over the next week or so that will be especially stressful?

This is exactly what people should be doing, and it is a privilege to pray with them.

But the productivity challenge is this: how do you remember to keep praying for them?

So often we say we will be praying, but then forget.

It’s easy, of course, to pray for them when you first receive the email that they will be going on the mission trip. In my case, a friend just emailed that he would be teaching overseas  on certain dates, and requested prayer through that time. So I prayed for him upon receiving the email.

But how will I remember to pray for him tomorrow, and four days from now, and a week from now?

Here is a simple productivity tip that solves the issue: Create an all-day-event in your calendar for the time the person will be gone, with the prayer requests in the note. Then, when you look at your calendar through that time, you will be reminded to pray for them and have their requests right at hand.

Certainly there are other ways to remember to pray as well. But if, like me, you often just try to rely on your memory when people have requests for a period of time, this is a simple way to make sure you will be more devoted to prayer for them throughout that time.

And so we also see that productivity practices can not only help us do our work better, but live other aspects of our Christian lives more effectively and fruitfully as well.

What Does it Mean to Glorify God?

by

Most Christians agree that our purpose in life is to glorify God.

However, we can also struggle with having a clear idea of what that means. Which makes it hard to apply and give direction.

Hence, it is helpful to understand more precisely what it means to glorify God. There are lots of ways to do this. One that I’ve found helpful recently is this: To glorify God means to give him weight. To give him ultimate significance and centrality in your life and actions.

In other words, to glorify God means to act in ways that show he matters most in each decision you make. It is to have ultimate regard for him in all that you do, coming from love for him.

I’d like to give some examples here, but what might be most helpful to illustrate this is for each of us to ask ourselves: what is something we did recently that gave God weight? And then ask: how can we do more things like that?

We Are All in Little League

by

This week I started coaching little league baseball for the first time. My two boys are on the same team and we’re pretty excited around here.

But going into our first practice, I knew I better temper my expectations. Typical seven, eight, and nine-year-olds have hardly been on a baseball field, much less developed the fundamentals of playing the game. Hand-eye coordination is spotty and attention spans are short (we’re talking five minutes short at our first practice).

All baseball players at this age have major holes in their game. They might have 17 things wrong with their swing alone! But kids can’t fix 17 things at one time. So my plan is to focus on one or two things with each player. If I’m able to help them reduce 17 down to 15 by the end of the season, that’s progress. And then next year their coach can help them get down to 12 or 13.

If we’re honest, we are all in little league.

We are imperfect people with real limitations and real-world constraints, and the way we lead change or grow in any area is essentially the same way kids get better at hitting baseballs.

If we try to change everything at once, should we really expect to make meaningful progress?

Rescuing Ambition in the Workplace

by

I think you’ll benefit from this excellent series of articles from Dave Harvey, author if Rescuing Ambition (also highly recommended!).

This is how Dave introduces his series on ambition in the workplace:

A few years ago I wrote the book Rescuing Ambition and called for a rescue. I wanted to  snatch ambition from the heap of failed motivations and put it to work for the glory of God. I wanted Christians to realize that to understand our ambition, we must understand that we are on a quest for glory. And where we find glory determines the success of our quest. Since I wrote that book, many suggested that I address God’s design for ambition in the workplace and in one’s daily calling. 

Here are the links to Dave’s multi-part series, “Rescuing Ambition in the Workplace”: Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

 

Hope for Those Who Feel Totally Unproductive

by

Job loss, economic downturns, illness, accidents, and a host of other difficult circumstances mean that at some point most of us will face something beyond a typical productivity challenge. We will have times when we’ll be seemingly unable to get much done at all that feels “productive.”

If you’re in a situation like that, take hope in the truth that you can be faithful wherever you are, however meager your energy and resources seem to be.

The book of Revelation, for example, teaches that faithfulness is the means by which we overcome the world and obtain victory. Christ specifically emphasizes this in his letters to the churches in chapters 2 and 3 in relation to those who are powerless and seemingly unable to do anything:

  • “I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich).” – Revelation 2:9
  • “I know you that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” – Revelation 3:8

You can be poor in this world, and yet utterly rich before Christ (Revelation 2:9). You can be utterly powerless in this world, and yet highly regarded by Christ (Revelation 3:8). This is true riches.

Trusting in him and obeying his commands is the essence of what God requires, and you can do this wherever you are and in whatever condition you are in.

No matter what your situation, you can look to God (Psalm 18:6), you can pray for the spread of the gospel among all nations (Matthew 6:9-10), you can be kind to the people who cross your path (1 Corinthians 13:5), and you can point them to your hope in Christ (1 Peter 3:15). “Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God” (Isaiah 50:10).

And, no matter what situation you’re in, you can pray. You can do more through prayer than you can imagine. “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think…to him be glory” (Ephesians 3:20-21).

If you can pray, you can change the world.

Developing a Christian Worldview

by

As Christians, we are called to engage the culture, not retreat from it. In order to do this effectively (and winsomely, avoiding spiritual weirdness), we need to understand how to develop a Christian worldview.

Philip Graham Ryken’s booklet What is the Christian Worldview is the best short read on how to do this. It outlines the four basic components of the Christian worldview—creation, fall, redemption, and restoration—and shows how they apply to every area of life.

This book gives a good basis for understanding the framework for thinking Christianly about anything, so that you can then apply the framework to your own specific callings.

 

Dream Dreams for Doing Good!

by

I realize that it can be very hard, and things can go wrong. But we still need to hear this. John Piper, in Don’t Waste You’re Life:

Oh, that young and old would turn off the television, take a long walk, and dream about feats of courage for a cause ten thousand times more important than American democracy — as precious as that is.

If we would dream and if we would pray, would not God answer? Would he withhold from us a life of joyful love and mercy and sacrifice that magnifies Christ and makes people glad in God?

I plead with you, as I pray for myself, set your face like flint to join Jesus on the Calvary road. ‘Let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come’ (Hebrews 13:13-14). When they see our sacrificial love — radiant with joy — will they not say, ‘Christ is great’?

Being Gospel-Centered at Work

by

More and more people are asking today the important question, “How does the gospel relate to my work?”

There is a lot that can be said on this, and for the best treatment out there I recommend Tim Keller’s excellent book Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work. 

But for immediate application, if you are looking for a few simple ways to begin letting the gospel impact your work right now, here are two things that go to the heart of it:

  1. Do your work from acceptance with God, not for acceptance with God. Realize you are fully accepted in Christ apart from anything you do, through faith alone. Hence, you do not have to fall into the grueling race of working to prove yourself or validate your worth.
  2. Do your work for the good of others. Because God accepts us apart from our works, we are free to truly do it for others. This is a simple but radical shift. It means seeing your work as a way of serving and benefitting people, not just a way to make money or accomplish your goals. Do your work truly from love, from a good will toward others, just as everything in the Christian life is to be done from love (1 Corinthians 16:14). This is what it means to be “rendering service with a good will” (Ephesians 6:7).

John Stott on Christian Ambition

by

A great quote on ambition from John Stott, via the blog That Happy Certainty:

Ambitions for self may be quite modest. . . . Ambitions for God, however, if they are to be worthy, can never be modest. There is something inherently inappropriate about cherishing small ambitions for God. How can we ever be content that he should acquire just a little more honour in the world? No. Once we are clear that God is King, then we long to see him crowned with glory and honour, and accorded his true place, which is the supreme place. We become ambitious for the spread of his kingdom and righteousness everywhere. (The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (IVP, 1993), 172–173).