Human Limitations Can Be a Good Thing: I don’t think that I have made a daily post for over a week. Lately, doing one post every week has felt challenging. But you know what? It is okay. Over a year ago, the phrase “Ambition is killing me” entered my mind. It was probably the Lord. In the driven, rat-race West, efficiency, productivity, and ambition are the cardinal virtues. Oh how lamentable. Western culture will crush your soul if you are not careful. I am reading a book right now by Kelly Kapic titled, You’re Only Human. He refers to a “time-management view” of our human limitations (finitude) as opposed to a theological view. The former says, “The only reason that you are not getting everything done and more is that you are not working hard enough, moving fast enough, and managing your time as well as you could.” On the other hand, a theological view of our human limitations says, “You are only human, and God didn’t make you to be a machine. You need to sleep, eat, slow down, not remain perpetually focused on doing and producing, and gladly accept your limitations and even praise God for them.” Do not limitations have the potential to bring us face-to-face with God so that we can learn to depend on him more? As Paul said to Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens:
Proverbs 10:22: “The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, without painful toil for it.” I am reading through Proverbs by reading one chapter a day in a really slow and prayerful manner. I skipped today, but I came across this verse the other day. It really made me stop and think about my attitude toward work, money, and even future dreams that require money. Who is providing for these things? Who am I trusting?
For Your Enjoyment:
Quote from Kelly Kapic’s You’re Only Human: I hope that the following makes you want to read the book. It is divided into two parts, and the second part is my favorite. In Chapter 7, he discusses the tyranny of time and how the invention of the mechanical clock with an hour hand, then a minute hand, and later a second hand has completely transformed our relationship with time—and not necessarily for the better in so many ways. He then links this with an unhealthy obsession with productivity as the chief lens through which we evaluate our own lives and success in the West.
Sitting at the dinner table with my wife and kids, when they ask me how my day was, I instantly think about “how little I got done.” As with other Americans, productivity easily becomes my sole measure. But it is tricky, because that measure so often allows a few dissatisfactions to become the barometer for the whole. And the activities that tend to register as productive or significant are those that are most easily quantifiable. How many classes did I teach, or what did I read, or how many words did I write? For you, the measurables will be different. How many sales calls completed? How many widgets made? How many lawns mowed? How much code written? What projects have I moved forward? Now here is the key: while none of those questions are bad (in fact, they’re all very good), that way of thinking risks narrowing our evaluation of work (and life) to a very mechanistic measure of productivity. When our evaluations of work and life become mechanistic, then we begin to see ourselves and others as mechanisms. When that happens, people and relationships suffer. The materialistic leanings of our culture are not obscure: we exalt the accumulation of material goods, self-gratification, and power, treating relative goods as ultimate goods.1 When productivity alone reigns, we cultivate idolatry rather than worship, isolation rather than community, and selfishness rather than love. It pushes away our awareness that God is with us and inviting us into his fellowship, even if, in my mind, I still affirm God’s existence. Despite knowing better, how often do I use productivity as my chief measure of value? (pp. 120–121)
BJ Condrey, Ph.D. 