The Problem of Productivity by Elizabeth Neep: 7 Ways to Pray blog series

As we explore different ways to pray, we realize that sometimes the best practice is simply stopping and resting – or taking time to create, as we hear from my lovely editor, Elizabeth Neep. (And don’t miss last week’s funny and thoughtful contribution from my US editor, Dave Zimmerman.)

For most people, the global pandemic is synonymous with slowing down. Seemingly overnight, commutes were halted, city streets abandoned, projects and parties postponed. And yet, for me, things were only just getting started.

After a season of waiting (one that looks shorter and shorter the further away I am from it), I entered this now iconic year with a new job, the opportunity to develop a brand-new imprint for SPCK and seven book deals to honour in my spare time. I don’t say this to show off (if the runaway success of John Mark Comer’s The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry is anything to go by, the glorification of busyness is no longer in vogue anyway!) but to say that, from the outside looking in, I was having my most productive year yet. And I was – professionally.

The truth is, as ‘productive’ as I like to consider myself, we all have the same twenty-four hours in the day. And, for every moment I have spent advancing in my career, I have not spent my time doing other things: I see necessary life admin as an annoyance and my long-suffering boyfriend has had to be content with the scraps of my time. And the reason? I too often see ‘productivity’ as a linear line graph, a steady climb, countless things I can tick off the to-do list, neat and defined. Thankfully, God doesn’t see things the same way as me.

I can’t tell you how many times I have come to God with my neatly structured agenda of the things I want to thank him for and say sorry for before swiftly moving on to my requests. I can’t tell you how many times I have asked for specific answers, for guidance, to then get nothing apart from a nebulous ‘just rest’ or ‘just be with me’ or (perhaps most frustratingly of all) ‘why don’t you go and paint?’. But why would I go and paint when I have a thousand jobs people are chasing me for? I don’t need to paint a picture or even know what to paint. And where on earth would I hang it? Time again God reminds me it’s not about the outcome. 

Where my (perceived) productivity looks like an ascending line graph, God’s productivity looks like a deepening, the gentle sanding of a stone until it is shiny and smooth, a ‘task’ that is never ticked off the to-do list but is even more productive for the fact it’s never ‘done’. It’s the kind of productivity that sees us cultivate deep and long-lasting relationships, not by checking in once every month because we have to but laughing with each other late into the night because we want to. It’s the kind of productivity that brings us back to the pages of the Bible, the one book we can never finish because even though we’ve read the words before, we are invited to enjoy the same lines a million different ways. It’s the kind of productivity that scribbles over my agenda and asks me to paint, precisely because it’s not for anyone, and though I might not even know what I’m painting, God knows that somewhere along the way, I will stop thinking about the end product and just enjoy playing and resting with him.

Which paradoxically, I am learning (again and again and again…) is the most productive thing we can ever hope to (not) achieve.

Elizabeth Neep is a Senior Commissioning Editor at SPCK, where she heads up their Form imprint. She is also a novelist writing under her name and Lizzie O’Hagan, a trustee for Kintsugi Hope and can usually be found drinking flat whites around Central London. 

Find out more about 7 Ways to Pray here, including how to pre-order in the US, UK, and Australia. Publication date is Tuesday!