There’s always more to do. There’s always room for improvement.
Can we honestly acknowledge the pressures of our world - and our hearts? In our restlessness, can we find peace?
We’re all works in progress. None of us have all the answers. Amidst the noise, Dr. Kelly Kapic’s book, You’re Only Human, points us in a promising direction.
In this interview, Dr. Kelly Kapic shares ancient and contemporary wisdom for a fully human life. One that recognizes our limits, our vulnerability, and our needs - yet is still good.
I really enjoyed listening to this, and the event happened at a time when I’ve been reflecting on my own finiteness! The last few months have given me reason to re-evaluate all the day to day activities I take on.
Two main things I took from this:
that today’s culture measures our value by our productivity. I recognised that I feel a mixture of guilt and failure if I don’t push towards high productivity in my context each day. I need to bring this to God.
I loved his encouragement to his students to write out 10 verses of scripture each day. The slow methodical process of this forces back the idea of quick paced productivity. It seems something much deeper occurs in this practice, and I feel really inspired to try it out.
There is so much to appreciate in this conversation! I thank you both for taking the time to do this.
First off, I am so glad to have Dr. Kapic in the Reformed Presbyterian corner. What a work he is doing! He is saying some very needed things in those spheres. I found myself saying “amen!” out loud (in very un-Presbyterian fashion ) several times as I was watching the video. I also wanted to give him the tagline: “Dr. Kapic: Teaching Presbyterians to be emotionally honest one college student at a time”.
Like @alison, I very much appreciated you both calling out our world (even our Christian world) for setting highest value on productivity and efficiency. “Love is not efficient,” was the counter. It’s only been recently that I was convicted (by the Holy Spirit, I am convinced) that I had God all wrong. For the longest time, I believed that our God is a God of efficiency. But if he was, he wouldn’t use us! I don’t think He cares as much for efficiency as He does for our participation/engagement.
And, Carson, I think it was you who reflected on just how much time we humans spend on making our machines more human-like and ourselves more machine-like. That really hit home for me. Dr. Kapic even made the point that economic terms are also frequently employed (like “spending” one’s time) when conceptualizing human activity.
I was also glad to hear this discussed: finitude is not sin. In Reformed circles (and probably others) there is a real spiritual hang-up around the fallenness (or perhaps, depravity) of humanity. It leads one to easily conclude that everything that proceeds from a human work can’t help but be sinful, and it leads to a crippling, pessimistic skepticism of mankind, which keeps people enslaved to fear. Oh that the people in those circles would be able to receive this message of liberation!
I know there are some other things that also struck me, but I need to go back and have another listen!
) several times as I was watching the video. I also wanted to give him the tagline: “Dr. Kapic: Teaching Presbyterians to be emotionally honest one college student at a time”. 