Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you work, you just can’t keep up?

You try the schedules, the habits, the to-do apps, and for a little while, it seems to help. Things calm down. You feel like you’re finally on top of life. But then the chaos creeps back in. The tasks pile up again. And before long, you’re right back where you started—behind.

If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Nearly every believer I’ve worked with in productivity has felt the same cycle: brief victory, then the chaos comes roaring back.

Why can’t we seem to keep up?

Let’s examine the solutions the world offers to this problem and where they fall short. Then we’ll turn our attention to how we, as believers, should approach the challenge of keeping up in the modern world, and explore where productivity can actually be beneficial.

Try Harder or Give Up

Faced with the seemingly impossible task of “keeping up” the world offers two proposals.

The first proposed solution to our inability to keep up is to simply try harder. “If I can’t keep up, then the problem must be me.” Ironically, the most effective people often embrace this way of thinking. They have achievement anorexia; they are insanely productive by everyone else’s standards, but always falling short by their own.

But the problem with simply trying harder to keep up is that it still leaves you chasing an impossible standard. Giving this kind of person a new productivity technique is like offering a bigger bucket to the lunatic bailing out the ocean: it doesn’t solve the problem, it just wears them out faster.

But if simply trying harder to keep up won’t work, what’s the alternative?

The second solution the world proposes is that instead of trying harder to keep up, we should just give up. There’s something of an anti-productivity movement that has sprung up in the wake of COVID, which suggests just that. It critiques the so-called hustle culture of the try-harder school.

What they get right is that they rightly observe that the “keep up” standard is impossible, especially in the modern world. But they err in that they meet the challenge with a spirit of resignation. They say the solution isn’t to become more productive but abandon the pursuit entirely. And while that can feel like a temporary balm when you’re in a season of burnout, it’s not really a long-term solution. You still have responsibilities.

Besides this, that kind of defeatist attitude is simply unworkable for the Christian who knows their life is not their own. Unfortunately, I’ve seen Christians advocate for a form of this ostensibly under the banner of grace. They say, “don’t worry about keeping up, Jesus took care of everything.” Now, we do indeed praise God that we are under grace. Our standing before Him is secure by faith in Jesus Christ. But grace doesn’t drive us to laziness. We aren’t just saved, we’re also stewards. We’re not seeking to merit salvation by our work, but in gratitude to please the Master who redeemed us. For believers, the correct response to the challenge of keeping up with life’s demands can’t possibly be extol grace while burying our talents in the ground (Matthew 25:18).

It is indeed impossible to “keep up” but the solution isn’t to simply put our heads down and try harder, nor is it to embrace and eat-drink-and-be-merry, anti-productivity mindset as if we had no hope. We aren’t merely victims in a too-fast, can’t-keep-up world. We are victors in Christ Jesus, and it’s in the hope of this eternal perspective that we find the motivation to press on, bear much fruit, and be productive in ways that please our Master.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
– 1 Corinthians 15:58

Christians must reject both the “try harder” and the “give up” proposals.

But then, where does that leave us? To answer this question, we need to think a little more deeply about exactly why we can’t keep up, and specifically what we even mean by “keeping up.”

Of Course You Can’t Keep Up

The reason you can’t keep up is that “keeping up” is a vague and impossible standard.

It’s comparing talents with your neighbor. It’s good to have role models—you might look up to a family at your church and seek to emulate the way they raise their kids, observe the diligence of a coworker and be inspired to up your game, or seeing the hospitality of a friend look for ways to make your home more of a haven for guests—but in our media-saturated world, many of us are trying to keep up with a standard which is an amalgamation of dozens of different influences.

We stitch together a patchwork standard of “keeping up,” drawn from snapshots of other people’s strengths. We judge ourselves by whether we can match a friend’s finances, an influencer’s fitness, and a celebrity’s success. And even when they are good examples for us in these areas, we fail to recognize that these are people who have made significant sacrifices in some domains of stewardship to achieve excellence in others. We expect ourselves to measure up to all of them at once without the sacrifice they made. When we inevitably don’t, we think “I’m not keeping up.”

This isn’t realistic. And what happens is that while we gaze enviously at our neighbors’ talents, meanwhile, the concerns the Lord has given us to look after go unstewarded. In our quest to keep up with the world, we fail to give heed to what our Lord has actually uniquely positioned us to do.

“Keeping up” is a ridiculous standard. And no amount of productivity will ever help you reach it.

The Real Standard

The question isn’t, “Am I keeping up?” The real question is, “Am I being faithful?” That’s the only standard that matters.”

God hasn’t called you to do everything. He’s called you to be faithful over a little. God calls you to identify what He’s given you to steward, pursue it with excellence, and stop worrying about keeping up with everyone else.

In the Academy, we talk about the faithful application of productivity in our lives as a three-part process.

Get ClearGet OrganizedGet Consistent

When you get clear on your purpose—identifying your unique stewardship—that’s when productivity actually becomes useful. Because then you can get organized and apply the tools to address that stewardship with a plan. Finally, you get consistent with a handful of habits that allow you to show up week after week in faithfulness to your calling in His power.

You’ll be amazed at the fruit the Lord produces when you stop chasing “keeping up” and start focusing on faithfulness.