So how is God at work in our most unproductive days? When it feels as though we've accomplished nothing and we fall so far short of our own plans and our own expectations. Those days are so frustrating to us, but they are never outside of God's sovereign power. It leads to today's question on what efficiency looks like in the first place.

A very good question from a listener named Melinda. "Hello Pastor John, thank you for this podcast. Back in episode 1115 about caring for those with dementia, you closed your remarks with this phrase, 'God's priorities for efficiency in this life are not ours.' Can you please elaborate on this for me?

I struggle mightily with time management skills and I'm a homeschooling mom trying to balance kids' needs and activities, ministry, household duties, and sleep. I feel overwhelmed with the need to be efficient every minute when it does not come naturally to me. What should efficiency look like in the busy Christian life?" I will explain what I mean by saying God's priorities for efficiency in this life are not ours, but let me say first and right off the bat that the reason I want anybody to know that is not so that they can get more done, but so that they do what they do in the right spirit.

Okay, so that's preface over everything I have to say. So now what do I mean by saying God's priorities for efficiency in this life are not ours? I mean that our priority may be that between 10 and 11 this morning, I plan to run to the bank and get some cash so that I can be back in time to pay the boy, the teenager who is cutting my grass, while a neighbor watches my two- and four-year-old for me.

That's the plan. And you feel good. I feel good. I'm making this up. I feel good that I worked it out. I worked it out so that the neighbor was available and the teenager could come and I could get to the bank and get back before both of them had other engagements.

Those are my priorities, and I have an efficient plan. Cut grass, kids watched, bank trip made, boy paid, everyone off to their next engagement. Victory! Efficiency! That's what I mean by our efficiency. However, God, in this case, has a totally different set of priorities. Your neighbor was scheduled to be at a real estate office at 1130, so she could join her husband to close on a new house, a house which, unbeknownst to them, has a flawed foundation.

The teenager was planning to take his money from cutting the grass and pool it with some of the guys and buy some drugs that they shouldn't be using. You hit a traffic jam caused by a rollover of a semi, which has another Unleashed story behind it, and you're locked up on the freeway for an hour.

You never even get to the bank. You rush home as fast as you can. You get there an hour late. No money to pay the boy, and your neighbor has missed her appointment. You are frustrated almost to tears. Your efficiency proved utterly useless to accomplish your priorities. You failed.

But God's priorities totally succeeded. He wanted to hinder that boy from buying drugs. He wanted to spare the neighbor from purchasing a house that's a lemon. And he wanted to grow your faith in his sovereign wisdom. Now, that's what I mean by God's priorities for efficiency in this life are not ours.

And in my view, this isn't happening just now and then. It's happening all the time. When you read the Bible, you see in virtually every book the story of God doing things that are not the way humans would do them or want them done. God almost never takes the shortest route between point A and point B.

And the reason is that such efficiency, the efficiency of speed and directness, is not what he's about. His purpose is to sanctify the traveler, not speed him between A and B. Frustrating human efficiency is one of God's primary—I say primary, not secondary—means of sanctifying grace. The story of Joseph, Genesis 37 to 50, is one of the clearest examples, right?

Joseph is hated by his brothers, thrown in a pit, sold into slavery, sold to Potiphar, accused of sexual harassment, thrown into prison, forgotten by Pharaoh's butler, and then finally—what's that?—17 years in, made vice president of Egypt so that he could save his family from starvation. Moral of the story, chapter 50, verse 20, he says to his brothers, "You meant it for evil.

God meant it." God had an agenda. God had a plan. God meant it for good. So you guys, you rascals, were the traffic jam that kept me from getting to the bank for 17 years. But God was positioning me to be the savior of my people. And he was in no hurry.

And I was being tested at every single point. Would I trust him with his seemingly meaningless inefficiency? Which it wasn't. And when Paul was trying to get to Spain instead, he had a plan. He had a really good plan. "I'm going to go to Jerusalem, going to deliver the money, going to get on a boat, going to go to Rome, going to gather some support, going to end my life in Spain." What a great plan.

He found himself in prison in Rome. What did he say? What did he say in Philippians 1.12? "I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ." So his priorities for efficiently getting to Spain were shattered.

But God's purposes to evangelize the imperial guard in Rome? Right on track. So here's the implication for Melinda. By all means, make your list of to-dos for the day. By all means. Get as good as that as you can get. Prioritize the list. Yep. First things first. Make your plan.

Do that the very best you can. Go ahead, read a book about it. But then walk in peace and freedom that when it shatters on the rocks of reality, which it will most days, remember, you're not being measured by God by how much you get done. You're being measured by whether you trust the goodness and the wisdom and the sovereignty of God to work this new mess for his glory and the good of everyone involved, even when you can't see how.

Wow. Now that would make an interesting productivity book. Thank you, Pastor John, for this God-centered perspective on efficiency and productivity in the Christian life. "Frustrating human efficiency is one of God's primary means of sanctifying grace." I wrote that down, and I'm going to return to that, no doubt, by the end of this day already.

Melinda, excellent question today. Thank you. As always, we appreciate those very articulate questions, Melinda, like this one you sent in. And thank you for listening and supporting the podcast. You can stay current with the Ask Pastor John episodes on your phone or device by subscribing through your preferred podcast catcher.

You can also search our past episodes in our archive and send us an email of your own, even questions about daily productivity and what it looks like from God's perspective. Those are great questions. We do all of that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well, speaking of trying to discern God's will in the midst of our lives, "Does God feel distant to me because I messed up, because I angered him, because I made choices that made him mad and caused him to withdraw from me?" is a very common question we get from people when it feels like nothing in life is going their way.

And it's a question we will tackle on Wednesday. Don't miss it. Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. (END) Desiring God's Will In The Midst of Our Lives