Efficiency Costs Something

It was a sunny Saturday morning, and I found myself sitting on my couch looking at my wife, Anna, feeling empty, sad, and alone.

I had woken up, gone to the gym, eaten breakfast, and realized I had no foreseeable plans beyond church the next day and work on Monday. The last three weeks had flown by, each day like the last. Wake up, work out, shower, pack lunch, go to work, come home, watch a show, go to sleep, repeat. My attempts to create a streamlined and efficient lifestyle had succeeded, but at what cost?

A few weeks ago, I parked our car at Target, got out of the car, and began walking to the front door. I hear Anna far behind me call out “Babe, wait up!” I had walked one hundred feet ahead of her and left her behind in the dust as she was grabbing her purse and getting out of the car.

Sure, I was making good time and beating the efficiency clock, but at what cost?

We’ve all heard:

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

And the reality is, many of us are willing to pay that price. We trade efficiency for solitude, speed for loneliness, productivity for isolation. I’m sure your employer is very proud of you for making that trade, but I’m also sure that your soul feels a little differently about that transaction.

The Kingdom of God and the world we live in both have ROI (Return On Investment), they just are in constant conflict with each other. For that reason, you can sit at a meal with an old friend and talk about absolutely nothing and feel full and refreshed. Or, you can sit at a desk alone, crushing the next week's goals in advance, and leave feeling like a shell of the human that sat at that desk six hours ago. At some point, you have to come to the end of yourself on a couch on a Saturday and ask if the achievement at the cost of loneliness is really any life worth living at all.

Jesus found himself at the table of a tax collector, Zacchaeus, in Luke 19 saying these powerful words…

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

- Luke 19:10

Jesus, in that moment, communicated that his main purpose was to seek and save the lost, and he was doing that through abandoning his A to B journey to sit at a table with a tax collector. Could this be the very model of Relational Connection that you and I are looking for? A God who sent His Son to present with us, willing to experience “distraction” for us, and able to sit with us despite the agenda of the day.

You can’t Go First in your Relational Connection while prioritizing efficiency; they are oil and water, they are polarizing concepts.

Speed and relationships don’t work! We see that in the success rates of speed dating relationships! We can’t live a life pedal-to-the-metal and be surprised when every face becomes a blur around us only to be left in the dust.

Your lack of Relational Connection, much like myself, could be tied to your addiction to progress, efficiency, and productivity.

Instead of working harder to maximize your relationships around you, what would it look like if you worked on minimizing some systems of efficiency in your life to make room for what the Holy Spirit wants to do with the little time you afford Him? To show you the pace and relationships He has in store for you?

Isaiah 40:31 is my prayer for you today…

But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

- Isaiah 40:31

I pray you experience the joy of Relational Connection as you create space for the Lord to guide your steps, conversations, and interactions as you wait on His timing and pace.

DJ Brennan