Confessions of a Workaholic

Have you ever opened your Bible and felt like a passage of Scripture was written just for you in this particular moment? Today was one of those days for me.

I’ll confess that I’m a recovering workaholic. When I say “recovering,” I mean that I’ve recognized that this is an issue in my life, but it’s an ongoing struggle that I battle with all the time, not that it’s something in my past that has been definitively dealt with once and for all. I’m a type-A, highly self-motivated, driven person. I’m very task-oriented and I thrive on checking off items on my to-do list (which is always a mile long). Sometimes I go back and add tasks to my to-do list or calendar that I’ve already done just so I can have the satisfaction of checking them off as completed. Yeah, I know, it’s a problem. (Just ask my wife! lol)

Western society caters to people like me. People like me often run businesses, succeed in school, and climb to the top of the corporate ladder. American culture praises people who “get stuff done” and productivity is prized above all else. And, in truth, productivity isn’t a bad thing. All the way back in Genesis 1, mankind was tasked with a job to do by his Creator. But, there’s an ugly side to the Western productivity mindset. Oftentimes, productivity is prioritized over people and relationships. And, if we’re not careful, we can begin to define ourselves by our accomplishments.

There’s an ugly side to the Western productivity mindset. Oftentimes, productivity is prioritized over people and relationships. And, if we’re not careful, we can begin to define ourselves by our accomplishments.

Since we got back to Papua New Guinea (PNG), I’ve noticed that I’ve tended to be a bit cranky. Ok, that’s an understatement. The truth is, I’ve struggled in these past four weeks and my family has borne the brunt of my crankiness. PNG does not share our Western productivity mindset. PNG culture is much more relational and people-oriented than it is productivity and task-oriented. Furthermore, much of the infrastructure that I relied upon in the US to accomplish my tasks simply does not exist here. Things that would take 3-5 business days in American often take “3-5 business weeks” here. That means that as I’m trying to get things done, I often find myself running into a wall and able to go no further.

Shipping is a good example. Our luggage allowance was fairly small this time coming from the US, so we decided to ship some of our stuff separately. Our typical method of shipping things to PNG (which we’re using for most of our less urgent belongings) would not get here until sometime next year, so I found a reputable freight forwarding service based in the US, packed up a few boxes, and had them sent off for “expedited” shipping. The freight forwarding company told us that the economy shipping option would take 5-10 business days to get to PNG. I chuckled a bit, knowing that was unlikely, but naively retained a little optimism that perhaps our stuff would get there not too long after we arrived in PNG.

That was 7 weeks ago. I found out that at least some of our packages ended up in Goroka, a city that’s about a 2-hour drive from Ukarumpa. I considered driving to Goroka to pick them up, but unrest surrounding the recent elections made travel to Goroka unadvisable. So, I had to make arrangements to have them delivered to a partner mission agency there in town and flown to us here (at my additional expense). I’m told that at least a couple of those packages *should* arrive this week, but some of the packages are still stuck in the port and the tracking number for at least one of the packages says it’s stuck in Singapore. 🤷‍♂️

Another project I’ve been trying to get done is some much needed repairs and improvements to our home here in Ukarumpa. While we were away, our house and shed were broken into three times, and we had a fourth burglary where a couch was stolen from off our porch. In one of the break-ins, the burglars actually broke through the rotting exterior wall of our shed (which is made of woven bamboo) and made off with some tools and our solar panels that we used for village living. After considering various options, we settled on building a new shed for our tools and storage and slowly renovating the existing shed to serve as a multi-purpose office, translator’s quarters (so our Mubami translators have a place to stay for free when they come up for trainings offered here on center), and a place to house short-term mission teams and visiting family. But, building a new shed requires approval and a building permit, which–as you might guess–is a notoriously slow process.

On top of all of this, I haven’t been getting very good sleep. Staying up late trying to make calls to US numbers to arrange various things, combined with a new puppy who needs to go out and kids who wake up at 6:30 every single day of the week make getting a full night’s rest nigh impossible.

I’ll be honest. I’ve not been the most pleasant person to live with the past couple weeks. The stress of adjusting and the constant frustration of never being able to accomplish the tasks I set out to do have worn on me, and I’ve been pretty cranky. Yesterday, during church, I felt convicted of how I’ve been acting towards my wife and kids, and I realized that I needed to take some time in solitude and spend some time with God.

So, this morning, that’s what I did. I’ll confess that I didn’t have high expectations. There’s no magic bullet to remove the sources of stress that have been weighing on me. But, as I opened my Bible and began to read today’s passage, the words cut through me like a hot knife to my heart:

I’ve been busy stressing about fixing up our house and building a shed, but “unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.”

I’ve been busy stressing about what I can do to secure our house against burglars, but “unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.”

I’ve been staying up late to work and getting up early. But, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.”

And all my stress about getting things done has caused me to subconsciously view my family as an obstacle, making me cranky and short with them. But, “children are a heritage from the LORD…Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth.”

I read these lines with chills running up my spine and tears streaming down my cheeks.

God forgive me for putting productivity before people, my work before my family. God forgive me for trying to bulldoze my way through my projects and not waiting on his timing and seeking him first. God forgive me for thinking that I could accomplish what needs to be done in my own strength. God forgive me for viewing my family as an obstacle instead of as the blessing from God that they are!

To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever fully grasped the connection between verses 1-2 and verses 3-5 in this passage until today. At first glance, they seem unrelated. But, when we put them in context, they make much more sense. King Solomon is the author of these verses. His rule was largely consumed with a massive building project–the Temple. I can only imagine the stress he must have felt in trying to coordinate one of the greatest building projects in history! No doubt there were points where it seemed impossible and he was tempted to shove his family aside in order to focus on work. If we value productivity over people, we will be tempted to view our family and loved ones as obstacles to our progress. He must have come to a point where he realized that trying to do it in his own strength was futile and that his family was not an obstacle to be overcome, but a blessing to be enjoyed.

If we value productivity over people, we will be tempted to view our family and loved ones as obstacles to our progress.

In the West, the culture reinforces the value of productivity over people, and the infrastructures that we’ve been blessed with offer the illusion that we can “build the house” in our own strength. But here in PNG, that illusion is torn away and we’re often left with the realization that “unless the LORD” does it, it isn’t going to happen! While his suffering was obviously of a much greater severity, Paul’s suffering in Asia seems to have brought about the same realization:

“For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1:8–9, ESV)

Paul’s sufferings in Asia seem to have been particularly severe (“…we despaired of life itself.”). But, Paul concluded that God had a purpose in those sufferings–to teach him to “rely not on ourselves but on God…” That’s a lesson that we all need to learn, and I especially needed this lesson!

As I read Psalm 127, there was one word that jumped out at me unexpectedly in verse 2: “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” Anxious? Was I really working out of anxiety? I typically think of anxious people as those who passively sit around worrying about things beyond their control. But, as I reflected on it I realized that “productivity” or “busy-ness” is often a disguise for anxiety. Sure, when some people feel anxious they sit around and worry about things beyond their control. But, others–like me–convince ourselves that these things actually ARE in our control, so we set about working like madmen to bring our will to pass. And, so long as we’re able to make some semblance of progress, we convince ourselves that we’re just being “productive.” We rely upon our own strength instead of upon God, and then when our strength fails us, we become anxious.

Jesus addresses this type of anxiety well in Matthew 6, one of my favorite passages in Scripture:

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.”

Matthew 6:26–32, ESV

Maybe it’s time to take a good, hard look at what drives our “productivity.” Do you measure your self-worth by your accomplishments? Do you get down and depressed when you feel you haven’t accomplished anything? Does your mood and how you treat others hinge on how your day at the office went? Maybe deep down, our productivity is little more than just a coping mechanism for our anxiety about the future and an attempt to control what rightly belongs to God alone. May God give us the grace to trust Him with what is beyond our control!