REDEEMING PRODUCTIVITY: A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE ON WORK, FAITH, AND PARENTING

0:00Hello, hello, welcome back to the Relatable Parenting Podcast. I'm Priscilla. And I'm Josh. It's been too long. Even longer for me because the last episode was a solo episode. That's right. Wow. That's crazy. God, good feedback from that one. So good job. I miss podcasting with you. You have me too. Sorry. We've been MIA. It's a busy season for us. And my parents have been away in Asia for almost a month now. The goal was that we would be able to keep all of our ducks in a row and be able to do all the things that we're normally used to doing, like work, family, podcasting. But Josh and I are ready to have one of our biggest support back so that we can put life back into balancing. They deserve to go on vacation.

1:00And in fact, they're not even really going on vacation. They're actually there for a mission trip. But I won't go into too many details on that because they are actually our guest. And our next episode is going to be me interviewing my parents. So you guys can get to know them better. And they talk a lot about what they're doing in Asia right now. This intentional break has actually done some good, which breaks and rest often do during those breaks and rest times. That's when the creative juices get to flow. During that break that we had, Josh and I got to chat and talk about the direction that we wanted to take this podcast. We say that every other episode. But that's the fun part about you guys being here in the beginning. You get to see us be scrappy and pivot and figure this thing out. It's fun. Josh, why don't you share with them the revelation that we had that has us really excited for the next couple of episodes?

2:01Like Purcell said, we're trying things out. We're hearing feedback. And we're trying to understand how to best serve you guys. At then the day, we know that we're not expert parents. We have two young kids. And although we do enjoy sharing things that we've learned and experienced, we know that it is relatable, but it's not expertise level wisdom. There's a podcast that she found and listened to this week that shifted not just her mindset, but my mindset as well on productivity and what it looks like to actually do things for the glory of God and a different viewpoint on being a productive human being. It's not what success can I gather in this world for myself, but rather how can I use what God is calling me to do

3:02and pursuing the things that He's calling us to do for His glory and still being successful, but in a different way. It was eye-opening from a standpoint of what are we doing with relatable parenting? Is it actually productive or is it just fluff? What we're shifting, at least for the next few weeks after Priscilla's interview with her parents, gonna look at things that we digest what we consume and learn and bring them to the table for you to point you in directions of actual experts and things that we're going to be implementing in our parenting and our relationship as well. Josh and I listen to a ton of podcasts and Josh reads a lot of books I want to be on his level of being an avid reader. Yeah, and we're constantly growing, whether that's spiritually, relationally, professionally or personally, we're always trying to not necessarily optimize ourselves

4:03but grow as human beings. We're not perfect and there are definitely things we don't know but we're excited to learn about them. That's my posture. What am I learning? Is it valuable enough to share and then give the credit to where credits do? Perfect example as well. We're going to be talking about in a couple of minutes. Give us your feedback. Let us know if you like it. And if you do, we'll continue. If you don't, then we'll try and make things better. Josh and I like a lot of similar topics but we also like different ways of learning about those topics. It's cool that we get to bring you then to the real conversations that we have about parenting and marriage. With that being said, let's get into this episode, shall we? We are big fans of dial in with Johnny Art of Vannis or big fans of his podcast. If you haven't listened, you should. And you should start with this episode that we're about to talk about because it's awesome. He has so many good ones. Josh is the one who often sends them to me. But this week, I sent it to him, the topic caught my eye because I love being productive.

5:06Redeeming productivity. Redeeming productivity is the name of the book that the guest on his podcast episode wrote. The guest's name was Reagan Rose. Johnny really liked it. He brought him onto the podcast to talk about it. And I thought immediately, this is such an interesting topic. To be honest with you, I do not have as much biblical knowledge as Josh does. I spent a good chunk of my life being an infant Christian and not being in God's word at all or connected to a church. I think because I've been so deep in the secular world without a biblical worldview, I sometimes have these concepts that are really hard for me to grapple with. I love productivity. I love hard work. I love self-development type stuff. I think sometimes I have a hard time because in the Christian community, I feel like those things can be anti-reliant on Jesus. So I love this topic. I'm gonna go through the notes

6:07and we're gonna dissect them together. It starts off with this statement that we should be people who do what we say we're going to do. That was a strong opening for me because it made me realize that he was about to talk about productivity and a positive light, but with a very biblical perspective. Would you agree with that? It definitely set the tone for the rest of the podcast. They framed it, correct me if I'm wrong. Productivity isn't bad, but you should check yourself on your why for being productive. The way that they phrased it was the motivation for productivity makes all the difference. Do you remember that part? Yeah, I think a lot of things can be framed that way. I was reading earlier in Luke and it was a lot about the Sabbath and how the Pharisees were constantly watching Jesus on the Sabbath so they can catch him whereas the disciples read-handed for breaking the Sabbath. The Sabbath was never intended to be restrictive.

7:07It was intended for rest and for recovery and the heart of it is to be able to go and worship the Lord. On those days, not to restrict yourself from working and doing hard things. A lot of Jesus teachings is actually around that very topic. Yes, the law is there, but it's really a matter of the heart. What this podcast goes into is that productivity a lot of the times the heart behind it is for self-promotion, for self-indulgence, when it should be instead glorifying to God. It was a simple explanation, but I think it helped me understand that balance better. I have a lot of moments with Christianes which is things that Christians say and I am a Christian. So I'm starting to say those things as well. But I remember when I first came back into the Christian world, people would say things and I would be confused. Let me try and give an example. For example, I was raised with a super big emphasis

8:10on hard work is a character that you need to develop. And it's something that you need to focus on and that needs to be a big part of your character and your life because it'll get you far. This podcast episode helped because it was talking about productivity, which to me is very similar to hard work. How do I say this? Can I? Yeah. To help me articulate what I'm trying to say. I used to do this. I would not do hard things because I would say I was relying on the Lord. There's a Psalm that Pastor Bruce shared with me about Israel working. They still had to work, even though they were trusting the Lord. They were worshiping God. They were praising God, but they were doing it while they were working. Sometimes we can use God as a scapegoat to be lazy. Yes. Unintentionally, most of the time it's naivety. It's definitely a Christianese move like, you know what? I'm just going to trust God with my work. I'm not going to do this project or I'm going to let someone else do this project

9:12because I'm just going to trust God. It's going to get me to where he wants me to go. And in some respect, that's true. Yeah, definitely. Even if you don't go do the hard thing, God can still direct you on a path to get you to where you're going to go. But at the same time, if you were to pursue something that's a little bit more challenging in light of that, in trusting God to do that, then the pursuit of that isn't wrong. It was kind of a heart check, right? Why am I pursuing this? Oh, I'm pursuing this for myself and to make more money or to get recognition for how smart I am. Let me pull back and not pursue that. And just trust that God's got it. It's a weird balance, but at the same time, there are definitely moments where I used as a way of giving into my fear of failure or giving into my fear of having to do something that was more difficult. Is that? That's exactly it. That was the exact Christianese phrase that I was talking about that I heard so often.

10:15One of the things that it made me think of immediately, it was, wow, it's so important to be in God's Word every day. I think that there needs to be a balance. A lot of the times, I think my friends are right when they say that I need a trust in the Lord for many situations. I think sometimes people can go too far with it and then not live up to their God-given potential because what it actually is is fear or laziness, but I also can go too far in taking things into my own hands and trying to control the situation. It is so important to be in God's Word every day to check yourself. Every person is prone to lean in one direction. Somewhere more like me where they very easily rely on themselves, then there's the other side of the spectrum. You're just saying that you're relying on God, but deep down, you're making decisions based on fear or laziness. Whatever side of the spectrum you lean on, it's of great benefit to be in God's Word every single day so that you could check your intentions

11:16towards the end of the episode. He touches on starting your day with God first. I really liked his point about starting the day with Jesus. It actually inspired me to not give myself an excuse to dive into God's Word at other times of the day. That's bonus if I do that, but it really motivated me to get excited about starting my day with Jesus anytime that you can get with the Lord is going to be unofficial. But he made some awesome points about starting your day with the Lord and he did relate it back to productivity. I'll say the one analogy that he said that really stuck out and then I want Josh to give his due sense because I saw you nod. He said one of the differences between a worldly getting up early in the morning versus a God-driven desire to get up in the morning early. For worldly, he used Jeff Bezos and some other billionaire as an example of people that get up at 4 a.m.

12:18They did it to be more productive, getting up to start your day with the Lord. You're trying to slow down your day. I really liked that he said, something is going to pull you in in the morning and it's a good idea to slow down and set the anchor. I really liked that analogy. I want to start the morning off calm, grounded, and setting the anchor so that I know what my priorities are. What did you have to add? Because I saw you nod, so I know you have some good things to say right now. Yeah, it's always been a goal of mine to get in the Word first thing in the morning. It's similar to what he talks about. It sets you up for the rest of the day. I remember Pastor Byron talking about having at least a verse that you can hold on to throughout the day and utilizing that as a practice if you write it down or have it as a reminder in your phone from the very beginning of your day, you are being renewed by the Word, by God, himself speaking to you. If you wait till the end of the day, again, that's fine. You can take that into the next day,

13:19but optimally in the morning first thing, it really does set the tone for the rest of the day. I like that part too. I've historically wanted to wake up early to be more productive, to be faster, to be more efficient, to squeeze as much as I could into the day. This episode, this redeeming productivity idea, this thought process shifted that in me to instead slow down and get time with the Lord and let him lead my day. I wish I read it this morning because there are moments in my day where I could have leaned on the fact that Jesus was talking about loving your enemies and turning the other cheek and living like he does as a humble human being. I have moments of pride and anger and frustration and if I had read that sooner, who knows, maybe I would have had different responses

14:20versus my immature reactions. I really loved that aspect of the episode. It was really good. Last thing, it also helps you take control of the rest of your day. He also goes into time blocking and really trying to schedule out your day gives you so much more time because it gives you the discipline throughout your day so that you have the means, you have the time, you know what you're going to be giving throughout the day versus allowing the day to control you and your schedule or random things pop up. No, I have family time for four hours after work. Nothing should be getting in the way of that. I really like that. They mentioned a bunch of golden nuggets. Tracking commitment is a way to do the things that you say, you're going to do and it helps you be a person of integrity. Goals don't need to be self-serving and then there's nothing wrong with ambition but it can be very self-centered sometimes. We should be people who do what we say we're going to do. Productivity is not the meaning of life

15:21even if it's important and you belong to God. That's why you should be productive. If it's all about you, you can forget why you exist and it can make you lazy. Yeah, can I actually speak to that real quick? Yeah, please do. There's so many things on social media now about becoming the best version of you. Whether that's from a productivity standpoint, a health standpoint, a spiritual standpoint, it's all about optimization. Bruce has touched on this. It goes from wanting to be better as a human being to it becoming an idol. That's all you focus on. It keeps people away from looking to the Lord and it focuses on how can they be better? How can they be a better person? How can they live longer? If that's all you're doing productivity for and you're missing the point. I think that's what Reagan was talking about. Productivity is actually a God glorifying act. God calls us to work. He worked for six days and then he rested.

16:21He had Adam work in the garden of Eden even before the fall of man. Work was always part of God's plan and we are expected to work. We should want to be as productive as possible but it should be in the service of others and for the glory of God. That's definitely something that I've struggled with where I've wanted to optimize my human body and mind and time and it became an idol and it pulled me away from the Lord. I started getting big-headed thinking this God even a thing, it was bad. I love that point of productivity is not the meaning of life. Even though social media makes it out to be, just be careful. Social media definitely makes productivity an idol. It was such a good episode. We'll link it down below so that you all can take a listen. And we should. It's bite size, it's pretty short. I listened to it on 2X and it took me only 12 minutes. Given all the things that we talked about

17:22on the podcast episode today and what we learned from Johnny and Reagan on their podcast episode, how do you plan to apply everything you learned towards your parents in this week? Morning routine, reminding myself that it's meant to be first slowing down versus speeding up, committing to it and doing what I say I'm gonna do will help the rest of the day be a more positive and uplifting experience, not just for myself but for the people around me, whether that's you or the girls or the people I work with. My base takeaway was controlling the morning from a practical standpoint is so important. And I've seen it in the past. When I wake up on time when I'm committed to doing things I say I'm gonna do in the morning, my days are so much better. It's God glorifying activity, setting a good example for our kids is always a positive. We obviously are in a unique position

18:24where we both work from home quite a bit. We actually are gonna be visible to our kids. They're gonna see us working hard and diligent and being ambitious and doing the right things. I think setting a good example there. And obviously incorporating the Lord in everything, right? If we're talking about our day at work, talking about it in a positive and grateful light, I think will in turn not just help us be better parents and have us have a more positive and loving attitude but it also will set that example for our kids as they grow older, whether it's schoolwork or actual labor when they get older. I love it. Thanks for wrapping it up and taking it away. Thank you so much for listening and watching. We appreciate it if you aren't subscribed to the podcast. Wherever you subscribe we should be there. You can find us on social media, whether that's Instagram or TikTok or YouTube. We appreciate all the support and we hope that you guys

19:29have a very productive week. Till next week, we'll see you then. Bye friends.