Product and Process
By Lexi Ellis
“So whether we are
at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him.”
2
Corinthians 5:9 (ESV)
Currently,
there is a push for product-driven education - - ways to determine the actual product
and effectiveness of education. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I have a
product - - what I want my students to learn or achieve -- and I then create a
pathway to get there.
Of
course, like anything, it can go too far. I recently saw on Pinterest, (1) “I
care more about the people my students become than the scores on the tests they
take.” Tests are important: They give important information. But when we focus
exclusively on the product of the test score, we miss out on the process of
learning.
In
my teaching, I try to balance process and product; however, in my spiritual
life, I find I often focus exclusively on a product - - how I appear to others.
Oswald Chambers writes that our true aim must be pleasing God, not the product
of appearance. It’s “not making our
first priority to win souls, or to establish churches, or to have revivals, but
seeking only to ‘be well pleasing to Him.’” (2)
It
isn’t about how I look to others. It’s about my pursuit of pleasing my God.
Chambers goes on to write, “My worth to God publicly is measured by what I
really am in my private life. Is my primary goal in life to please Him and to
be acceptable to Him, or is it something less, no matter how lofty it may
sound?”
When
I seek to be pleasing to God, in faith, I do what He asks and I love like He
loved. The apostle Paul wrote about how insignificant the product is without the
process of love.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (3)
When
I choose to pursue the process of pleasing God and not on the product of how I
look to others, I allow God to use me for His Kingdom. In the same way
education works to balance process and product, we need to remember to forgo
our own emphasis on appearance and focus our energy on pleasing our Creator.
GOING
DEEPER:
1. Spiritually, where are you focusing on the
product rather than enjoying the process?
FURTHER
READING:
(2)
Oswald Chambers. My Utmost for His Highest. March 17 entry.
Lexi is married to Andrew, serves with Oakwood’s Children’s Ministries, teaches at Lake Country Christian Academy and is the Fresh Start Coordinator.
