Procrastination is a killer.
When you kill time, you begin to kill the ideas and directions God placed within you. The Living Bible’s paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 11:4 says, “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.” The best time of day is now.
Let’s be like the apostles. Even today, they are not known for their policies, procedures, theories, or excuses, but for their acts. Many people say they are waiting for God, but in most cases God is waiting for them. The cost of growth is always less than the cost of stagnation. As Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Occasionally you may notice someone who doesn’t do anything yet seems to have some success in life. Don’t be deceived; things are never as they appear. Remember the old saying, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” As Christians, we are called to make progress—not excuses.
The first step to overcoming procrastination is to eliminate all excuses for not taking immediate action.
The second step is to be less busy. Everyone is always on the move. People are moving forward, backward, and sometimes nowhere at all as though they are on a treadmill. The mistake most people make is thinking that the main goal of life is to stay busy. Such thinking is a trap. What is important is not whether you are busy but whether you are progressing. The question is one of activity versus accomplishment.
A gentleman named Jean-Henri Fabre conducted an experiment with processionary caterpillars, so named for their habit of blindly following each other. In his experiment, Fabre placed these tiny creatures in a circle. For twenty-four hours the caterpillars dutifully followed one another around and around and around. Then Fabre placed the caterpillars around a saucer full of pine needles (their favorite food). For six days, the mindless creatures moved around and around the saucer, finally dying from starvation and exhaustion even though an abundance of choice food was located less than two inches away. For all their activity, the caterpillars accomplished nothing.
Be a person who accomplishes great things for God—not talks about it. Procrastinators are good at talking, not doing. Mark Twain said, “Noise produces nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as though she has laid an asteroid.”
Procrastination is a tool of the devil to hold us back and to make us miss God’s timing in our lives. “The desire of the lazy man kills him, for his hands refuse to labor” (Prov. 21:25 NKJV). The longer we take to act on God’s direction, the more unclear it becomes. So take action—now.