Trusting Jesus with What You Accomplish and What You Don’t

I’ve always placed a high value on how much I was able to produce: silently congratulating myself for meeting every deadline, going the extra mile, or finding the best price on that highly sought after gift.

This way of thinking became incredibly difficult when I became a mother. Suddenly my days were measured by if my child was clothed, fed, and sleeping at the appropriately scheduled times. I went from having meticulously crossed off and completed goals and to-do lists to feeling like weeks passed without truly completing a single, measurable thing.

During that stage of life, I struggled with adjusting my expectations and finding a new normal about what accomplishment looked like. I had to relearn that my value was not in what I got done but instead my value was in who I was serving – my family, but more importantly, the Lord.

I’m now out of the baby and toddler phase of parenting, and I’m sad to say I’ve found myself creeping back into the mentality that my value and worth is in what I accomplish. I continue to measure the success of my day by how much I’ve completed.

I found myself pondering the questions, “What if slowing down and doing less is actually more productive? What if slowing down helps me be more productive in the right things?”

These questions came to me after reading the story in Exodus 17 when the Israelites were in the wilderness and complaining to Moses, because there wasn’t enough water. The first thing Moses did was seek the Lord’s advice on what to do. God answered by telling Moses to take his staff and strike a rock and water will come from it.

Moses didn’t have to dig a well. He didn’t have to ration out what little water they had left. Moses didn’t have to map out a plan to look for new water sources. All of which may have been productive and may have even supplied the water the people desperately needed. Instead, Moses chose to seek the Lord’s advice. Moses walked by faith, believing that obeying God by striking the rock would produce what his people needed most.

Moses demonstrates how seeking the Lord regarding our next right step is always productive. It builds faith and saves us stress and anxiety toiling over our self-made solutions. When we slow down and seek God, He points us in the direction He wants us to go which yields faith-filled productivity.

What is faith-filled productivity? It is regular productivity except it comes with the peace of knowing I accomplished what God asked of me. It also includes letting go of undone tasks, and trusting they will be completed in God’s perfect timing.

Back in January, like millions of others, I started thinking through some goals for 2024. Life got busy, and I never finished setting them. It may be time to revisit those goals and seek the Lord’s guidance on what He would like me to accomplish.

It’s time I got off this hamster wheel of trying to increase my value and worth through productivity and instead look to Jesus. In Jesus I am valuable, no striving needed. It’s only in following Him that my work and accomplishments will have eternal, lasting value.