Productivity vs. Fruitfulness

God seems to give me just what I need when I need it.

I lead a women's Bible study on Tuesday mornings at our church, and this particular study is on stress. Each week is broken down into a different subtopics, and this week was "fruitfulness." When I think about the word, "fruitfulness" I often think of it in spiritual terms, I think about the fruit of our labor or the fruit of the Spirit or the fruit that comes from being in a relationship with God.

I never thought about pitting productivity against it though.

There's this pressure all around to be productive. Get more work done, get more stuff, have your kids in all the important activities, volunteer at church, make sure the laundry is done, and the house is always clean and tidy. That is a lot of pressure!

I work part time from home and I was stressing myself out by trying to take care of the girls, the house, and try to work all at the same time. I would fail every time resulting in yelling at the girls and worrying about what I wasn't getting done. I finally realized that trying to get all that done, trying to be too productive, was not good for me. I have been getting one to two migraines a week for a while now, and came up with every excuse in the book like-we live kinda close to the highway so that's what's causing my migraines. Or, it must be hormones. But, I am willing to admit that I was trying to do too much at once and that stress was making life hard.

So as I was going through my Bible study this morning, I realized that God has been teaching me that although being productive is good, trying to be too productive is not. Instead, I should be focusing on being fruitful and living in His will. love, and grace. Doing that will guide my life and result in happiness that I cannot achieve by filling my life with too many tasks.

Being in a hurry and filling my life with too many things is not good for me when it is done for the wrong reasons. So, I am choosing to work towards being fruitful instead of productive. I want to create a happy and balanced home for my family, work from home when the girls aren't awake, and choose activities for the right reasons and not because everyone else is doing it.

I would love to have every piece of laundry clean at any given moment, never have dishes sitting around, have a clean house that is ready for visitors at all times, but I"m pretty sure that God is calling me to create a balanced home and family and raise children that love Him. So, I am trying to do that. No more six way multitasking and thinking about whether Jenna should be in dance, swimming lessons, and preschool. We take one thing at a time and stop to play a game of hide-and-go seek with the girls without worrying about what I'm not getting done.