Have you ever thought about how Jesus’s life would be evaluated by 21st-century American standards of success if he were alive today? Not his resurrection, but his life.

He was from a tiny, backwoods town from which one of his own disciples said nothing good could come. His family wasn’t impressive. His education wasn’t notable. He wasn’t rich or powerful or good-looking. He didn’t travel the world, didn’t conquer nations, and didn’t even fit in in his own hometown. He was despised, run out of town, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

There is virtually no record of Jesus’s early life, until he chose 12 men to be his students, none of whom were brilliant, influential, well-educated, well-known, or even all that brave. They spent three years walking all over Israel together, eating, sleeping, and interacting with people.

There is nothing in the historical documents to indicate he was a dynamic speaker, a great entertainer, or had a charismatic personality. He spent a lot of time alone in prayer, he stopped to engage with those he encountered, he spoke the plain truth, and he commanded his followers to do likewise.

Of course, in those few years before he was publicly humiliated and put to death as a common criminal, he did some pretty extraordinary miracles and shared some rather impressive wisdom with noteworthy authority. But when I think of Jesus’s life – even in light of his revealed purpose – I can’t help but think that he was remarkably inefficient and unproductive with his time and resources.

He only spent three years in public ministry, yet he never seemed to be in a hurry, didn’t seem to have a lot to do, and frequently seemed to take very circuitous routes to where he was going. He spent the majority of his time doing life with just 12 men when he could have been preaching to thousands.

As God incarnate, He could have come to earth as anybody, with any combination of gifts and abilities, to wow the world by a multitude of means, yet he came as a nobody. He even likened himself to a shepherd who would leave the 99 in order to go find the one that was lost. Talk about inefficiency!

Even as his miracles drew quite a bit of attention, he fled the crowds more often than he fed the crowds. And when he did have an audience, he presented the Christian life like this,

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:34-39)

And,

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets…. Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:22-23, 26)

And he said things like that all.the.time. It’s a miracle he had any followers at all! He must have known he had very little time on earth (after all, we all do!), and yet he seems to have driven people away at least as often as he drew them in.

Then, as if his own life had not been inefficient enough, after allowing himself to be captured and killed, he charged his disciples to go and do as he had done – spending their lives in prayer, service, and disciple-making; not sharing the gospel in under an hour and then moving on, but making disciples, teaching them everything he had taught so that they would be mature and complete, lacking in nothing! Did he not realize what a messy, time-consuming, costly, and extremely inefficient endeavor that is?!

The truth is that Jesus knew exactly what he was doing, following and obeying the Father, who does everything with purpose and intentionality. And yet he was extraordinarily inefficient.

I don’t know about you, but there have been many days when I have beaten myself up over my lack of efficiency and productivity, not because I’m unwilling to work, but because I always think I should be doing more – meeting with more people, sharing more truth, filling in more slots on my daily schedule, and seeing more measurable results. But that doesn’t seem to have been the mindset of Jesus.

During the past year and a half of transition out of the big city of Atlanta and into a small, rural town, I have been challenged more than ever to evaluate my metrics of success, and this is what I’m seeing: efficiency and productivity are idols in my life, as well as in our culture. They allow us to run from the ultimate questions of life, to avoid confronting our sin, and to suppress the wounds and disappointments that were meant to lead us into the arms of Jesus. They enable us to feel good about ourselves while evading the meaningful reflection that gives rise to our deepest longings, which teach and remind us that this world is not enough. They help us feel important while shunning what (and who) is most important.

Being efficient and productive is not wrong; in many lines of work they are critical. But just like all good things, they can easily become valued and prioritized above all else. Jesus wasn’t particularly productive or efficient, but he was incredibly effective. He prioritized his relationship with the Father above all else. He was never too busy to love and serve others when needs arose. And he didn’t just love the attractive, well-connected people who would most assuredly spread his message far and wide. He ministered to the outcasts, the despised, and the wretched, who may never have impressed another human being on earth.

If you’re beating yourself up because you’re not as efficient or productive as you would like, be encouraged. God is at work in and through your life in accordance with His perfect will. When we give our lives to the Lord, He uses our living sacrifice as He pleases, for His glory. It doesn’t always look efficient, and it doesn’t always look productive, but God’s work is always effective. Together let’s confess that we have allowed our culture to define our values and ask God to allow us to be a part of His work in whatever way He sees fit, even if that means losing all efficiency and productivity for the One who is worthy of losing all things.

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith – that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:7-11)