On the Holiness of Time
How productivity and slowness can coexist.
Every morning I make a cup of coffee. It is not just the taste but also the process in which the flavor is created that satisfies my soul.
First, I grind my organic, fair-trade, shade-grown coffee beans to the perfect size necessary for maximum flavor extraction (yes, I am aware of my coffee snobbery). Once the grounds are placed in the filter that sits nicely within the Chemex, the real magic begins. The first pour of hot water simply saturates the grounds to allow for the process of blooming to take place. The dampening of the coffee bed releases carbon dioxide initially trapped in the bean in the roasting process. After about 30 seconds of bubbly release, the main pour commences. With a slow and careful spiral motion, the water saturates the grounds thoroughly, and the perfect coffee comes out of the bottom of the filter and into the Chemex container.
On average, the entire process can take about five to seven minutes. On the other hand, I could have popped a K-cup into the Keurig and had decent coffee in less than one minute. But here’s why I explained the elaborate process of one cup of coffee’s creation. Good things take time, but the coffee did not create itself. I needed a sense of productivity to make the caffeine-enhanced beverage, but the slowness of the process allowed for a less bitter and more flavorful brew.
Every morning, the Lord graces me with an illustration of how productivity and slowness can coexist.
In the beginning, God established a rhythm of work and rest into the fabric of the universe and human nature that goes unmodeled and unpracticed in today’s culture (especially western culture). After creating, shaping, molding, developing, and building the universe for six days, the Lord does something we know little of today: He rested.
“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.” (Genesis 2:1–3).
We are now called to model what God set forth. Work six, rest one. The piece that trips up the average person is the rest portion. We are terrible at resting. But I would argue that we as believers (and as humans) should pay close attention to our productivity as well. Why? Well, when asked, “how are you?” one of the common answers is “busy.” Why are we so busy? With what are we so busy? Is our “busyness” actually productive?
Is it possible for us to slow down and at the same time complete what we are responsible for? I believe the answer is yes. And who else would I use as proof than Jesus?
The Slowness of Jesus
In three years of ministry, Jesus made more impact on the world than we will ever make in our lifetime. And he walked everywhere. He wasn’t in a hurry. By walking everywhere, Jesus had time to disciple, pastor, listen to, and guide His apostles. No believer would look at Jesus and think, “If He would have jogged a little bit or went to places by boat more often, He would have made WAY more impact.” God sent His only Son to a particular place in a particular time in history for a particular reason, and one of those reasons was to teach us a holy lesson of slowness and productivity.
So how can we model Jesus in this way? How can we be productive and slow at the same time? How can we pour the hot water of productivity into the filter of slowness to extract the flavorful brew of a life well spent?
Practical Advice
1. Start and end your day with Jesus.
There is something to be said of the amount of well-known, faithful Christians who got up or get up early in the morning to spend time with the Lord.
Charles Spurgeon once said,
“Early rising has the example of Old Testament saints to recommend it, and many modern saints having conscientiously practiced it, have been loud in its praise. It is an economy of time, and an assistance to health, and thus it doubly lengthens life. Late rising is too often the token of indolence and the cause of disorder throughout the whole day.”
By starting your day with the Lord, you are setting your priorities straight and seeking to walk with the Lord through every passing moment. You are not running with Jesus; you are walking with Him (Colossians 2:6; 1 John 2:5–6). Walking with Jesus is slow and productive, for you are not walking in circles; rather, you are walking toward the cross.
Ending your day with Jesus allows you to close the day with restfulness and joy.
2. Create boundaries for work and play.
The Senior Pastor of the church I am blessed to work for, Chris Emmitt, has a saying that has profoundly stuck with me. “Do your work and then go home to your family.” By sharing this with his staff, he encourages a ruthless battle against overwork. He is encouraging the establishment of boundaries condoning a healthy work-life balance.
When we allow work to slip into other areas of responsibility, we begin to cherish achievement over relationships, relationships with our spouses, children, family, and friends. By creating boundaries, we set ourselves up to properly position what matters most, thus eliminating the idolatry of self from seeping into our hearts.
3. Don’t overestimate what you can do in one day.
Take a look at the average overworking person’s calendar, and you’ll most likely find very little space between meetings and too many tasks on their task list. The badge of “busyness” we’ve slapped onto our chest makes us think we have to fill every waking minute with something that makes us look and feel busy. So, what happens when the person or people you’re with need a little more of your time, but you have another meeting scheduled directly after the one you’re in? Naturally, to fulfill your commitment in the next meeting, you must cut the current one short, thus cutting short the time they may have needed.
In his profoundly accurate book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer competes directly against the grain of the modern world and says,
“To walk with Jesus is to walk with a slow, unhurried pace. Hurry is the death of prayer and only impedes and spoils our work. It never advances it.”
Why are we in such a hurry to complete everything in one day? Why do we feel the need to give someone a sliver of our time so that we can move on to the next task or meeting? The answer is pride. And if I know anything about Jesus, He took His time with His people.
Conclusion
Productivity is not a sin but can be a death sentence assigned to your soul if not appropriately held in check. We are called to work hard and to walk slowly with Jesus. Learn from the person of Christ and slowly pour productivity into a filter of unhurried presence.