The start of a new revolution around the sun triggers new resolutions for our days. At the beginning of yet another year, planning visions and productivity hacks are again at the forefront. We’re setting goals, embarking on new projects, crafting reading lists, and hoping that this time around we’ll do better at sticking to it. Maybe some of us have opened that note we wrote a year ago and haven’t looked at since. Reusing past goals is its own kind of efficiency. Reduce, reuse, recycle, right? At least digital notes don’t accumulate dust, so you don’t accumulate as much guilt.
Or maybe you’re more of the free-range roamer. Goals and plans are not your cup of tea. You live life one day at a time. Sure, there are situations you’d prefer to be different, or dreams you wish were a reality. You may even have consistent actions in the same direction for a period of time. But you prefer life to not be so coordinated and planned. “We’ll see what happens,” is your tagline.
Whatever your approach is to getting things done, the mantra that typically stimulates this sort of hustle is to make sure you’re not just doing things right, but doing the right things. You need to be effective and not just efficient. Good stuff. And also, it requires some more questions. What are the “right things” that we should be doing? What are the criteria for being effective?
Like with all things, the gurus have their answers. We hear it said that we need to plan from the end, and start from when you’re dead. That sounds like a reliable starting point. It even almost rhymes. Like a good movie with an opening climactic scene right before the words, “72 Hours Earlier.” You know it’s going to be good. Typically, though, productivity engineers describe effectiveness in the context of relationships. What do you want the people you left behind to say about you? How do you want to be remembered? How do you want to be known? Start with your desired reputation in your relational contexts and engineer your life from that.
The Bible does say that “a good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.” (Prov. 22:1, ESV) A good reputation is in fact good. The Holy Writ also tells us that “the glory of children is their fathers.” (Prov. 17:6, ESV) What family you belong to makes a difference. Maybe you call it privilege. Okay. If so, the Bible says it’s good. The legacy you’re leaving for your children is crucial to consider. So, yes, I don’t have any direct issue with trying to engineer your life from the end based on the reputation you want in your relational contexts. That consideration is a Biblical one, in my view.
However, I do think that there is a question that needs to underline it all, as we determine what the “right” thing is for us to do with our time. The 1920s in America are known as the “Roaring Twenties.” It seems like the 2020s might be known as the “Tumultuous Twenties.” So far, we’re on track with the increased tension of the story, heading towards some kind of a climax. We’ll see what happens. It seems we are cursed with interesting times. Building a reputation in a time of peace and tranquility will look different than building one contra mundum. “He was known as a trouble-maker,” is not really the tombstone quote one jots down in his life plan. I, for one, much prefer a peaceful and quiet life, without disturbance or conflict. Alas, we do not control the times we were born into. We can only control how we live in them. Or what was it that Gandalf told Frodo?
“’I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
So, trying to have a positive reputation with everybody seems like an impossible task. At least for the times we live in. Asking the question, “How do we want to be known?” is important, but secondary to asking, “By whom do we want to be known?” There is one who’s thoughts of us we should be most concerned for: the One who placed us in this time.
I am not saying it doesn’t matter what other people think of us. As I already said, we should care about our reputation in the eyes of others and the legacy we’re leaving behind. But what precedes the thoughts of other people are the thoughts of God. There will always be those ready to criticize faithfulness. As we’ve seen throughout history, and even in our time, the criticism can come from those whom we least expected.
At times I contemplate what it would look like to remain steadfast in times of persecution or pressure, when even other brothers send criticism and taunts your way. I think about the stories my grandfather told me about being a part of the underground church in the Soviet Union. Apart from slander, imprisonment, and persecution from the State, his own family and fellow Christians would condemn his stance against registering the church with the State and submitting to the government’s demands. I’m reminded of David’s words in Psalm 55:
“For it is not an enemy who taunts me – then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me – then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng.” – Psalm 55:12-14, ESV
What if even your closest friends would not stand at your side, when you needed them most? I’m comforted by the thought that when it’s all over, those who were wrong will know it, and admit their mistakes. The faithful will be vindicated. If not while they’re alive, at least in the history books. The names of the faithful will go down as those of heroes and martyrs, right?
We wish it were so. But that isn’t the case. The names that make it into the books are the few. For most of us, our own blood a few generations after our grandchildren won’t even know our name. And if the movement we are standing for is vindicated at a future point, many times our own critics jump on the bandwagon as popularity spokesmen, as if they were there all along. Books are written today revealing the doings of the Russian underground church, interviewing Christian “dissidents” – the same people who, at the time when it mattered most, were critics of the actual dissidents.
Legacy and vindication in the minds of men is not where our hope lies. As we think about the name we leave for ourselves and our family, especially in the context of our current cultural upheaval, relying solely on the judgment and approval of men is not a sturdy foundation. So, why labor and toil and work?
That’s a question that is relevant all the time, but even more so when we experience resistance to our work rooted in the works of sin. Whether the resistance is relational or inanimate, we still need to bear the burden and answer, “Why bother?”
Our name may be slandered by men, and will be forgotten in history. Or maybe we won’t even have a chance to gain any kind of attention – good or bad. Maybe we’ll just do our work quietly, love our wife faithfully, raise our kids thankfully, and then be put in the ground. Maybe our entire life plan consists of doing seemingly mundane work, day in and day out, wrestling against the resistance supplied by this life under the sun.
There is a reason for us to continue in the struggle. We offer our blood, toil, tears, and sweat because when men will forget our name, our Maker will not. Through the work of Christ, God has made it possible for our work, done in faith, to not just matter, but be worthy of reward. God promises to reward the work of the faithful. It is by seeking glory and honor and immortality, springing from the hand of God, that we, by patience, strive in doing good. It is for the sake of the reward from God that we wake up every morning, ready to do our work by faith. At the root of it all, what motivates our life visions and productivity hacks, is not just any relational context. We look first to our relationship with our Master and Father, and long to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
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