We live in a culture obsessed with productivity. If you’re not rising and grinding, getting stuff done, always achieving, making, doing, creating, cranking out work, busy busy busy, then what worth do you have? It’s rarely explicitly stated like that but the message still sneaks into our minds.
"Productivity is for machines, not for people. There’s nothing meaningful about packing some number of work units into some amount of time, or squeezing more into less. Think about how effective you’re being, not how productive you’re being.”
For Christians this should be obvious for us. When we come to Christ we are given a new identity, a new way of understanding our place in the cosmos. It has nothing to do with our productivity.
"Usefulness is the sole criterion for the World, the Flesh, or the Devil. But you have no use value to God. You can’t. There is nothing He needs. You can’t cease being useful to God because you were never useful to begin with. That’s simply not why He created you and why He continues to sustain your being in the world. It was gratuitous, prodigal. He made us just because He loves us and for His own good pleasure. Every other reason to live demands that you remain useful, and one day your use will run out. But not so with God. To God, your existence in His universe is an act of creation, and it remains good as creation even in its fallen state.”
This is why the Sabbath is so important. This is why we must rest. Stop working. Unplug. Get away. Sit and breathe. Spend some time doing something absolutely useless. Find a hobby that you will never turn into a side hustle.
Your ultimate value has nothing to do with how hard you work. You’re not a machine. You are a son or daughter of a king.
So chill out once in a while.