In this episode, Sara Hagerty explores why and how so many of us make productivity the measure of our lives. She shares what it has looked like for her to shift subtly to focus on growing down first…ultimately finding that this may be the only path to producing fruit that will last.

In this episode, you’ll discover

• How attentiveness to things beyond this world ultimately grows us more attentive to the people and situations in it.
• Finding identity and value beyond our productivity – especially as children of a loving Father.
• Specific daily habits that help to slow us down and connect to God amidst the hubbub of life.
• Why growing down first – cultivating our roots in Christ ahead of a focus on productivity – ultimately is most productive.

Key Quotes

“…There is brokenness on the earth that I want to be a part of, yet I physically know that if I keep doing this without tending to my inner life in God, I’m going to drown”
Sara Hagerty

“I treated [God] as a coach and a leader, not a gentle father.”
Sara Hagerty

“Jesus speaks a lot about fruitfulness, and God clearly intends that for us. And yet, prior to and underneath and far beyond mere productivity is that call to be connected to a good Father. If we race past that toward fruitfulness first, we are missing something profound.”
Jedd Medefind

“Some of the best, long-lasting things take a long time to get there.”
Sara Hagerty

“I started to enjoy unpacking the word of God in my heart, not for a bible study, not for something I would teach, not for a lesson that would help me to validate what I’m already doing for God.”
Sara Hagerty

“The less productive I have become, the more I have invested time in pursuing His heart…‘wasting time with God’ … I have found my life becoming more impactful.”
Sara Hagerty

Meet Our Guest

SARA HAGERTY

Author, Speaker

Sara Hagerty is a lover of God, a wife to Nate, and a mother of six – four adopted from Africa and two through miracle pregnancies. She’s also a bestselling author and speaker. As a lifelong lover of words, Sara has experienced their power to revive. Words prayed during the long years it took to bring her six children into her fold. Raw words written in tearful honesty and shared with her readers. Words spoken in hidden places as whispers and worship to God. Today Sara’s words offer God’s hope to millions of readers facing unwanted circumstances in life.

In Sara’s first book, Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet (2014), she chronicles how her life expectations did not become reality – how the bitterness of loss and infertility was no match for God’s nearness to her in her pain. Sara’s second book, Unseen: The Gift of Being Hidden in a World that Loves to be Noticed (2017), explores the tension of our craving to be noticed as we live within the middle minutes, the unwitnessed parts of life, and how we can find God’s gently-searching eyes on us there. Sara writes and speaks on many topics, including adoration, the beauty of hiddenness, marriage, and adoption.

Sara and her family live in Kansas City where she loves long runs on back country roads, reading through her overly ambitious book stack, and an early morning mug of chai tea.