Productivity: A Wonderful Servant, But a Terrible Master

Productivity is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. It gives a sense of accomplishment, a momentary victory, the peace of something finished and done. But sometimes what we call productivity is only busyness in disguise—striving wearing a noble face. We chase motion because stillness feels too much like nothing.

Fruitfulness, though, belongs to another kingdom. It doesn’t rush to perform. It moves with the pace of seasons and listens for the wind instead of the clock. The world celebrates what can be measured, but the kingdom celebrates what quietly matures in hidden soil. Not every living thing announces its growth.

Some of the most important parts of the creative process happen when it feels like nothing is happening. That’s the moment that tests the heart—the pause between breath and becoming, when all you have is silence and anticipation. But what if the stillness is not absence at all? What if it is the trembling before light?

Genesis begins there. The earth was formless and void. Yet the Spirit hovered, vibrating with expectancy over the nothing. That hovering was not wasted time. It was holy waiting. Creation itself began not with movement, but with presence. Every act of creativity still begins the same way: with the Spirit hovering, the page listening, and the void trembling with what’s about to be spoken.

There is a sacred discipline in allowing nothing to happen. It takes more restraint to be still than to strive. Good fruit takes time to ripen. Good wine needs time to breathe. Good creativity requires silence to mature. We think waiting is delay, but it’s actually where depth is formed.

When ideas feel tangled and inspiration seems to have gone missing, don’t pull harder. Rest your hands. Let stillness do its quiet untangling. Every creative knows that frantic motion only tightens the knots. Peace loosens what panic binds.

The monks once had a phrase for this rhythm—ora et labora. Pray and work. Their lives weren’t ordered around deadlines but around devotion. Prayer shaped their work, and work became an expression of prayer. It wasn’t productivity for its own sake—it was fruitfulness born of presence.

Some find solitude in a pathless sea, while others tremble with anxiety in the midst of the unknown. Both come alive when an unforeseen rhythm puts you in motion with no effort on your part. It feels like a flow of grace happens as a sail unfurls and pops as it catches a friendly wind.

So if you find yourself in a season where nothing seems to be moving, don’t rush to escape it. Let the Spirit hover there. Let anticipation tremble in the silence. The same God who breathed over the void is breathing over your “nothing” now.

Be unafraid of the nothing. That’s where the something begins.