Procrastination
And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. – Colossians 3:23-24 NKJV.
One of the worst of my acts of procrastination occurred while I was in college. I had to write a paper for a personnel management class. It wasn’t like this was suddenly assigned; it was assigned at the beginning of the course with the deadline for it given. However, I waited until the Friday before the Monday it was due to begin writing the thing. Thirty hours later I had finished the monster and presented the paper on time Monday morning. Sadly, the professor thought the work was too good for me to have written it, and gave me only a marginal grade for the work. Maybe if I had been working on the paper the entire semester, I would have scored higher on the tests; participated more in class, and then the professor would have believed I could have written the paper.
On a site called “Worst Procrastination Stories” I found another person who did something similar who says, “I did a 22,000 word document in 36 hours after having four months to do the work.” Of course, procrastinating about some things can get you into real trouble like the person who wrote, “Not doing my taxes for two years. Apparently Canada Revenue doesn’t like that. Who knew??” For those who don’t know, the IRS here in the US doesn’t like procrastinators either. So, for all you procrastinators the good news for US taxpayers is you have until the 18th of April this year to file your tax return.
Procrastination is a killer. It is a killer of your peace of mind and a creator of worry. The semester I was taking my personnel management class I had to worry the entire semester about writing that paper. I put it off, and put it off, and it created anxiety in my life. That’s what procrastination does.
Is there a cure for procrastination? Possibly; however, it is not a one and done kind of thing. The cure for procrastination is rooted in our relationship with our Lord. As we walk with our Lord and Savior listening for His Voice we will have a desire to do our best, which includes not giving in to procrastination. Whatever it is that we are doing, it should be God honoring, and when we do it we are serving the Lord. “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.” Then, as we walk through each day with our Lord we will find “…in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Romans 8:37).”