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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

productivity

From Doing to Being

July 17, 2019 By Michelle 13 Comments

I’m still in a season of transition and directional change over here. I recently decided, after a 10-year stint as a monthly columnist with my local paper, to say farewell. I thought I’d share my final newspaper column with you (I’ll still be blogging and publishing my monthly newsletter though!). 

Ten years ago I was told by an expert that if I hoped to publish a book, I would first need to build a platform. I should have my own radio show or a newspaper column, plus a website and a social media presence, he advised. I needed to demonstrate to prospective publishers that I had an audience who would buy my book.

With that goal in mind, I suggested the idea of a column about “faith in the everyday” to a features editor at the Journal Star. A few days after I emailed her, I was flabbergasted and thrilled to receive a “yes” to my pitch.

Ten years and 117 columns later, I find myself on the cusp of a new season. Three months ago I announced on my blog that I am stepping away from book writing. After a long period of discernment, I finally acknowledged that the culture of publishing — with its relentless drive toward increasingly larger audiences, more self-promotion and bigger sales — is not a place I want to be anymore. After many seasons of planting and harvesting, I am stepping into a period of pruning and uprooting.

The message we hear again and again from our society is that more is always better. When we cut back at all, it’s often only so we can increase our capacity to produce more. We scrimp on sleep. We leave vacation days unused at the end of the year. We skip regular exercise and cut corners on nutrition. We even neglect our closest relationships. All so we can work more, earn more, succeed more and do more.

I’ve always equated “fruitfulness” with work. I believed that a person was “fruitful” only if he or she produced something — especially something tangible. Jesus, on the other hand, offers a different definition of fruitfulness. “As you live in union with me as your source, fruitfulness will stream from within you,” he told his disciples. (John 15:5)

Like a tender cultivar grafted onto a mature tree, we flourish when we graft ourselves to God. In abiding in his love, a new kind of fruitfulness flows out from us and into the world – a counter-cultural kind of fruit that is less the product of doing, producing, pushing and striving, and more the result of simply abiding in God.

Five years ago if you had asked me what I thought I would be doing today, I would have answered without hesitation: writing books, magazine articles, blog posts and this monthly newspaper column. Pushing to grow my platform, striving to grow my audience. I couldn’t imagine a time when I wouldn’t be producing more books, more articles and more words. I couldn’t imagine a time in which I wouldn’t be striving to be more productive and more successful.

Today if you ask me the same question, my answer is markedly different. The truth is, I have no idea what I will be “doing” in five years. This isn’t to say I won’t have a job – I certainly hope I will – but simply that my lifelong focus on doing and producing is shifting toward being and abiding.

Today I rest in quiet confidence, knowing that while it may not reflect our culture’s standards of “fruitfulness,” whatever is born of this new season of pruning and uprooting will indeed be fruitful in God.

Filed Under: Gospels Tagged With: fruitfulness, Gospel of John, productivity

Don’t Let Productivity Be the Boss of You

January 11, 2017 By Michelle 10 Comments

My son Noah and I walked Josie around Holmes Lake last weekend. It was above freezing for the first time in days, but when we stepped out of the car and trudged toward the path, the wind blew hard from the south, straight into our faces. It was cold, but we were there, and Josie was already sniffing eagerly, so we decided to go the distance.

Noah and I didn’t talk much – it was too cold for that — but when Josie stopped to sniff the trunk of a silver maple perched on the shore, I observed out loud that the tree already had its buds.

“It’s seems a little early for that, don’t you think?” I asked Noah, as I stared at the reddish buds dipping and bobbing in the wind above my head. After all, it’s not even mid-January, right? How in the world would those tender buds survive at least another month and a half of Nebraska’s bitter chill?

Noah, who has loved trees ever since he could talk, informed me that many species put out multiple rounds of buds – up to six cycles, in fact, depending on the type of tree and the year. If it’s too early in the season and the buds freeze, the tree simply puts out another batch, and another and another, repeating the process until the circumstances are right for the buds to survive and flourish.

I thought about that silver maple tree and its premature buds for a while, because, truth be told, it reminded me a little bit of myself. How many times have I steamrolled forward, and, in my eagerness, excitement, and drive to produce, put something out into the world that wasn’t quite ready, a bud that was too weak to survive and thrive?

How many times have I let the need to produce and achieve be the boss of me, propelling me to keep churning out more, even when I and my idea weren’t ready?

Come to think of it, I did exactly that this week. I’m working on a proposal for a new book idea, and I’m so excited and passionate about this idea, I want to thrust it into the hands of the publishing board right this very minute. I admit, I also feel pressure, from both the industry and myself, to produce something new.

However, my agent gently reminded me that the proposal isn’t quite ready; we’re not there yet. More work needs to be done, more preparation, to ensure that this proposal is solid enough to survive the vetting process. Unlike the silver maple on the edge of Holmes Lake that gets six opportunities to produce buds that will bloom, I only get one chance to pitch this particular book idea to my publisher.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m Type A. My drive to achieve is hardwired into me. Like the silver maple, I am driven to produce. But slowly I am learning that neither my personality nor industry expectations should determine my productivity. Just because I’m “driven,” and just because society encourages relentless productivity, doesn’t mean I actually need to produce on a particular timetable.

Unlike the silver maple, I get to choose the circumstances that will give my bud the best chance to bloom.

Filed Under: work, writing Tagged With: productivity

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Living out faith in the everyday is no joke. If you’re anything like me, some days you feel full of confidence and hope, eager to proclaim God’s goodness and love to the world. Other days…not so much.

Let me say straight up: I wrestle with my faith. Most days I feel a little bit like Jacob, wrangling his blessing out of God. And most days I’m okay with that. I believe God made me a questioner and a wrestler for a reason, and I believe one of those reasons is so that I can connect more authentically with others.

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