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December 1 - December 16, 2022
Sitting across from the people you care about the most, you’re there but not really there, as your brain is trying to do the thinking you didn’t have time to do during the day.
First, Jesus offers you peace before you do anything.
This book begins with the opposite premise, in what we might call “grace-based productivity,” which says that through Jesus Christ, we already have peace, and we do time-management exercises X, Y, and Z as a response of worship.
for Christians “peace comes first, not second. The mistake we often make is to make peace of mind the result of things we do rather than the source.”
the Gospels do show him prioritizing where he spent his time (see Mark 1:38), dealing with distractions at work (see Matthew 12:46–50), fighting for silence (see 14:13), and seeking to be busy without being hurried (see Mark 11:11).
Paul was saying that part of our response to the gospel is to redeem our time—to manage our time as carefully and wisely as possible.
“We are commanded to be time redeemers, those who reclaim our time from useless pursuits and employ it to the glory of God.”
We don’t redeem our time so we can “be more successful.”
“If you want to know what water is, the fish is the last thing to ask.”
“If we are to master time, we must come to know the author of time, the meaning of time, and come to know the part he calls us to play in his grand story.”
Truth #1: Our Longing for Timelessness Is Good and God Given
Work existed pre-sin. Work was good. Work was more than good—work was worship.
“God…has given time-bound humans a longing for timelessness.”
Truth #2: Sin Has Ensured We Will All Die with Unfinished Symphonies
“No human impulse is more fundamental than our desire to transcend time, and none argues better that time is not the medium for which we are finally meant.”
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Truth #3: God Will Finish the Work We Leave Unfinished
“God’s kingdom, inaugurated through Jesus, is all about restoring creation the way it was meant to be. God always wanted to work in his world through loyal human beings.”
Our work matters today because it is a means of glorifying God and loving our neighbors as ourselves
God doesn’t need you or me to finish our to-do lists. If the things on our to-do lists are on God’s to-do list, he will complete them with or without us.
Truth #4: The Gospel Is Our Source of Rest and Ambition
the gospel frees us from the need to be productive.
And because we did nothing to earn his grace, there is nothing we can do to lose it.
“A Christian is something before he does anything.”
“Do you know I love you no matter how many good things you do?”
“Do you know I love you no matter how many bad things you do?”
God loves us no matter how productive or unproductive we are in this life.
Because working to earn someone’s favor is exhausting, but working in response to unconditional favor is intoxicating.
For Christians, the key to being wildly productive is realizing that we don’t need to be productive.33 Once we realize that God accepts us no matter how many good things we do, we want to be p...
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“Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16, ESV). In other words, the very purpose of our lives—the reason we were created and saved—was to do good works that advance God’s kingdom and glorify him in the process.
“aimless, unproductive Christians contradict the creative, purposeful, powerful, merciful God we love.”
Truth #5: We Can Know How God Would Manage His Time
“Besides being vulnerable, subject to injury and death, [Jesus] had the limitations of being confined to one place in time and space.”
“As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.”
“To live your life without God is the most unproductive thing you can do.”
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. For through wisdom your days will be many, and years will be added to your life.”
“The fear of the Lord adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.”
“I have so much to do today, I’ll need to spend another hour on my knees.”
“If you love God the Father and want a living, thriving relationship with him…then you need to carve out time to be alone with him. Full stop.”
To that end, allow me to suggest that you pray what you now know regarding time and your role in it—daily, weekly, at whatever cadence feels right to you. Of course, you can use whatever words you’d like, but you’re also free to borrow my own prayer:
“Once he’s with us, then we can begin doing things.”
To redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must ensure that our yes is yes from the smallest to the biggest commitments we make.
The answer is found in what psychologists call the Zeigarnik effect, in which “uncompleted tasks”—or, in this case, unfinished songs—“tend to pop into one’s mind” over and over again.
the simple act of making a plan had cleared their minds and eliminated the Zeigarnik effect.”
The Zeigarnik effect is brought on by things we know we need to do but that we’ve failed to get out of our heads.
Open Loop: anything personal or professional, big or small, urgent or distant, that you have any level of internal commitment to doing in the future
First, our open loops make it impossible for us to be fully present.
second problem that occurs when we fail to clear our heads of open loops: from time to time, we are bound to drop the ball and forget to do something.
the third and, in my opinion, most significant problem that occurs when our “mental RAM” is bursting with open loops: having an overwhelming number of open loops causes anxiety and stress.
we’re stressed because we fail to get open loops out of our brains, email inboxes, and other tools and into trusted, external systems.
