Overcoming Procrastination

Paul’s sermon was powerful. The Roman ruler had to deal with it. He found the perfect answer. It has been nearly 2,000 years and his solution is still the favorite one for those who do not wish to deal with a decision.

Felix spoke up and said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.” (Acts 24:25).

We have a word to describe this behavior – procrastination. I love the words of the poet:

Procrastination is my sin.
It gives me endless sorrow.
I have decided to give it up
And I will begin tomorrow.

We live in a society that rewards procrastination. We really do not give the early bird the worm. When is the best time to get great deals on Christmas gifts? The answer is: “On the first day after Christmas.” We do not reward the early, but rather we punish the tardy. If all taxes that were filed during January had an automatic 10% rebate, there would be little need to provide extensions to tax payers.

Why do we procrastinate? There are several reasons:

(1) Fear. We are afraid we will not succeed so we delay trying.
(2) Busyness. We stay busy doing good things but let that busyness crowd out the important things we ought to do.
(3) It works! By putting off hard tasks till tomorrow we really don’t have to deal with them today.

Unfortunately a lot of our hard work is just the easy work that we did not do when it was still easy.

Here are some ways to overcome procrastination.

1. Quit lying to yourself.
Some people tell themselves that they work better under pressure and looking down the barrel of a deadline. No you don’t, it is just that you have waited till the last minute so often and now you have come to associate yourself with pressure. We work best in a calm environment.

2. Break it down.
Don’t put off the task because it is too big. Start with something, even if it seems insignificant. There is an old proverb that says, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

3. Make a list and be accountable to it.
Better yet, make the list the night before. It is always easier to think we will get up early the next morning to do the task that we could have done the night before.

The tragedy of life is not that it ends too soon, but that we wait too long to begin it!

Lonnie Davis

A Twig and a Rose

August 3, 1492 – October 11, 1492

To see the dates listed in this way make it appear as the days of a brief life, but it is not. They are 70 days that changed the world.

Setting out to reach the east by sailing west, the world thought Christopher Columbus was crazy. On August 3, 1492 three ships sailed into history. Few expected that they would find anything but the end of the earth from which they would fall as though going over the edge of a great waterfall. 70 days into the trip, the ship was near mutiny. Fearing for their lives, the crew argued passionately for turning back. Columbus promised them that in three days, if they had not found land, they would turn back.

Hours from failure, someone spotted a reed and a carved piece of wood and soon thereafter a twig and roses. It was a hopeful sign. These things indicated land and civilization. The crew now knew that if they would just bear a little longer in their journey, they would succeed. Within hours, they found the new land. The rest is history that we all know.

Anyone of thousands of sailors could have discovered this new land. Reaching the new land required no skill that other sailors lacked. Greatness is usually not the result of great skills, but rather the result of great faith. Others could have made the trip, but they lacked faith to start. If other sailors ever did start, they quit before they succeeded.

Faith comes in degrees. Others may have had the faith to start such a journey, but lacked the faith to last to the end. They lacked the faith to persist till they could find a twig and a rose.

The challenge for Christians today is to start the journey before you see the end. Any old heathen can walk by sight, but a Godly man or woman can start in faith and spot the twig and the rose along the way.

As the Bible says, “We walk by faith, not by sight,” but along the way God sends us a twig and a rose to encourage us.

Lonnie Davis

For 12 years, King Saul hunted David like he was an animal. For 12 years David fled from his home land. He lived in caves, hid in mountains, and even lived with his old enemy, the Philistines. Maybe the most dramatic moment of all was when David was hiding in a cave. It happened that King Saul went into that cave. David, at the urging of his men, had the opportunity to kill Saul and end the reign of terror. David took out his knife and then instead of killing Saul, he merely cut off a piece of his robe. Saul never even knew it happened. When Saul left the cave, David showed him the cutting and shouted to him, “May the Lord Judge between you and me.” (1 Sam 24:12).

He could have killed Saul, but instead he left vengeance to God.

We love to call David “a man after God’s own heart” and long to become a man or woman after God’s heart. What does it mean to be a man or woman after God’s own heart? This moment in David’s life gives us insight into his heart. Instead of seeking vengeance or even justice, David was willing to let God handle things. He said, “May the Lord judge between you and me. And may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you.” (24:12). In modern language he said “Saul, I don’t understand why you are trying to kill me, but I will not raise my hand against you. I will let the Lord handle all of this.”

It is a rare person who can truly agree to disagree and not let it destroy the relationship. We all want all want relief. We all want justice. We all want our own way. We can be like the little boy who came home from school and told his mother that the bully in class had hit him and that tomorrow he was going to hit him back. His mother told him that vengeance belongs to the Lord and he needs to let God handle it. Little Johnny replied, “Okay, I will give him until Friday.”

Sometimes you have to agree to disagree, but in so doing, you must not be spiteful or hateful. He you must not cut off the other person. Let him or her be who they are. You have to say, “May the Lord judge between you and me.”

Can you do that? If so, then maybe you are a man or a woman after God’s own heart.

Lonnie Davis