Better than resolutions

The right way to view New Year resolutions:

So, forget what lies behind, and then press on toward the goal. And any resolutions you make, make in the recognition that you are accepted and forgiven by God in Christ apart from any resolutions, and then seek to fulfill them in the power that God supplies (Colossians 1:29)

From Matt Perman.

Update: Resolutions? No! (from the Desiring God blog)

Work

One of my favourite blogs, frequently linked in the sidebar here, is Matt Perman's What's best next. It's great for organized people, and even better for disorganized people like me, especially at this 'getting organized' time of year. Matt is senior director of strategy at Desiring God ministries (led by John Piper), so when he talks about organization, you know it is going to be worth sitting up and taking notice.

A couple of days ago he blogged Studs Terkel's 1972 book Work, including this quote:

Work is about daily meaning as well as daily bread. For recognition as well as cash; for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. We have a right to ask of work that it include meaning, recognition, astonishment, and life.

I commented on the post that Terkel's view was attractive but idolatrous, expecting from work what we ought rather expect from God. Here's my elaboration on the notion that work (in this world) ought to be meaningful or astonishing, as opposed to meaningless and boring:

To work and find satisfaction is a gift of God. But work is afflicted with meaninglessness and boredom, unavoidably so. This problem will be fixed in the new creation and not before.

Those who can find satisfaction in work should thank God for his unexpected kindness, neither taking it for granted nor treating it as a right.

Productivity in perspective

I follow and really appreciate Matt Perman's blog What's Best Next. I knew from reading his blog that he was a Christian, but hadn't worked out until today that he works as senior strategy director for John Piper at Desiring God.

Here he is being interviewed on another blog, and responding to three questions on productivity.

I love his answer to the third question, which is "In a nutshell, what is the most important and fundamental principle for being productive?":

I would actually say: realize that you don't have to be productive. By this I mean: your significance does not come from your productivity. It comes from Christ, who obeyed God perfectly on our behalf such that our significance and standing before God comes from him, not anything we do. Then, on that basis, we pursue good works (which is what productivity is) and do so eagerly, as it says in Titus 2:14.

When it comes to day-to-day application, the main principle is this: The key denominator of effectiveness is not intelligence or even hard work, as important as those are. It is the discipline to put first things first. You need to operate from a center of sound principles and organize and execute around priorities. This means that instead of prioritizing your schedule, you schedule your priorities.

Isn't that great? He grounds productivity in the gospel of our Lord Jesus, and rightly defines it as 'pursuing good works'.

What's Best Next

I originally started subscribing to Matt Perman's blog What's Best Next because it was one of a handful of blogs that I use to think about how I organize my somewhat disorganized life.

Here, for example, is his post on the basic principles of how to set up your desk (which in my case currently has sitting on it Matilda's Christmas wish list, a draft speech from her on why she should be school captain, some instructions for Fifi's mobile phone, and the lid of a bottle of juice I drank two days ago, among other things). And here's his "9 productivity principles in one paragraph" post.

So I was delighted and disoriented when I worked out that from time to time, he also blogs Christian stuff. Here, he gives two thumbs up to Don Carson's book The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians.

And his latest post explains how materialism means that moral accountability flies out the window.