Monday, April 11, 2011

Procrastination – Preparation – Perseverance

Let’s get some basic definitions down before we start.

Procrastination: to put off doing or to postpone habitually
Preparation: the act or process of preparing
Perseverance: the act of persevering, continued, patient, effort

Several questions come to mind: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Some witty but stupid answers also come to mind: Who am I? I am me, I always have been for as long as I can remember. Why am I here? I am here, because, I am not there. Where am I going? Crazy, do you want to come.

Procrastinate… now! Don’t put it off another minute. Never do today, what you can put off until tomorrow. Some people just don’t want to deal with making tough decisions. So, they just put it off, and put it off, and put it off. What if I’m wrong? What if it doesn’t work out? What if they don’t like me? Sometimes, life is just hard. We get to a point where we say, “I’m between a rock and a hard place”. By continually putting off making decisions, we get to the point of learning “the hard way”. Sometimes others will not have the time to wait, because they need a decision, they will no longer wait on us to make that decision, and they will make the decision for us. Then we have to deal with their decision and we may like that even less.

Preparation: Then you have those who… are always preparing! They have list after list, after list. They can tell you what you need for every event or occasion. But, they themselves, could not “put on” said event or party. I often think of the husband and wife who are going on a two week vacation. I ask the question, “Can a wife fill a suitcase so full that the husband cannot lift it”? The answer is yes and no. Yes she can, but even though the husband cannot lift it, he will find a way to get it to the car, out of the car, to the airplane, out of the carrousel into the rental car, out of the rental car and into the hotel. All without saying a word about how his wife over packed.

And that brings me to perseverance, what a segway. The husband has had to persevere with continuing, patient, effort.

By now, you are probably asking, “When is he going to get to the spiritual stuff”? Right now!

From day one, in the Bible, men and women have put things off, things that didn’t seem important at the time. When Noah was building the ark, the entire world was mocking him. “It’s going to what”? “What’s rain”? “Man, you’ve been at this for a loooong time, and we haven’t had on drop of water from the sky”. When Moses went up on the mountain, the people “went to hell in a hand-basket”. They didn’t wait and pray as they should have. They continually wanted what they had left in Egypt. They kept telling themselves, “Things were soooo much better back there”. Like living in slavery for 400 years, making bricks with no straw, wandering in the desert for 40 years because of unbelief and disobedience. And then, after living in the land of milk and honey they said, “Give us a King”! OOPS! About which I wrote another paper on that very topic. If you did not receive it let me know and I will forward it.
But now that we live in the 21st century, things are different. We are much more sophisticated, much more educated, much more aware of things going on around the world.

What types of things do we procrastinate about? How about Bible study, prayer, worship, tithing, caring, sharing you faith, and you fill in the blank, surely you have thought of something.

How are you preparing spiritually? You never know what type of adventure is around the next corner. Do you know enough or do you know enough to know you need to know more? Read it slowly, it will come to you.

When you get to a tough time in life, will you bail? Or will you stand firm? Ephesians 6: 10 – 20. This passage talks about putting on the “full armor of God”, in order to pray and stand firm; so that… you will be able to stand up against rulers, and powers and authorities, and world forces, and spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places, and yes, the devil himself. I guess this is a follow-up to my last writing, Preparing for War. This current writing’s title has been in a list of writing topics for at least a year. That list has over fifty titles, and most has been written on.

So, where do you find yourself? Are you procrastinating? Are you preparing? Are you persevering? How would you convince me of your position? Procrastinators in Noah’s day found themselves scratching at the door of the ark… after the door was shut. Some of the people who worshiped the “golden calf” died when the desert opened up and thousands were swallowed up. The people who wanted a king, got what they were asking for, and lived in fear.

Matthew Chapters 5, 6, 7 are called the Sermon on the Mount. Ask, seek and knock are the keys to this passage. You are to ask Him. You are to seek Him. You are to knock at the door of His throne. And then be amazed at His leading and guiding words, back to you. But you have to slow down long enough and be quiet enough to hear “His still small voice”. Isaiah 30: 15 says this, “For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, ‘In repentance and rest you shall be saved. In repentance and rest you shall be saved. In quietness and trust (confidence) is your strength is you strength.” Are you ready for the ending, you had better sit down… “But you were not willing”. When I was a kid, one hundred miles per hour was fast. Today, with “bullet trains and Concord jets and space shuttles”, one hundred miles per hour, is slow. What does it take to be willing? Maybe my next writing, who knows?

Following the Shepherd,
Ron

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