What Are You Putting Off?

Are you a person who lives by the adage, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today” or do you flip that around and say, “Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow”?

We live in a world of procrastinators. Cats never seem to be in any hurry to do anything. The same can sometimes be said of us. We push so much off until tomorrow. But so often, the proverbial “tomorrow” never comes. Have you ever waited until the day before an assignment is due to begin working on it? You need to get bloodwork done, but you keep putting it off. You keep finding better things to do than go through the boxes in the basement and get rid of years’ worth of accumulated junk. You put off calling a loved one until one day it is too late.

I am sure that today card stores will be full of men, many with panicked looks on their faces, scrambling to find a Valentine’s Day card

Pablo Picasso once said, “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” We live in a world of procrastinators. The word procrastinate comes from the Latin verb “procrastinare” which means deferred until tomorrow. Most of us eventually do the things we need to do, we just seem to usually put them off or wait until the last minute.

When our daughters were growing up, my wife and I would regularly ask them to do certain things. “Please clean your room.” That meant clean your room right now. Other times, it might have sounded like this: “On Saturday, please clean you room.” When God gives a command without any specific day or time, I believe he is desiring whatever it is he commanded to be done immediately. Instant obedience is the only kind of obedience there is. Delayed obedience is really nothing more than disobedience.

And when our daughters pushed back on something we asked of them, we tried not to simply say, “Do it because I say so.” We gave them an explanation, to hopefully help them understand our reasoning. There were times, however, when we felt they would not at that moment understand, so “do it because I say so” meant something like this: “Trust me on this, it is for your own good.” And sometimes what God asks us to do simply makes no sense. But we can always rest assured that it is for our own good and the good of others.       

When Jesus visited Simon (Peter) and his brother Andrew as they were fishing, He invited them to become his disciples. In Matthew 4:19 we see Jesus say, “Come, follow me, and I will send you out to fish for people.” Did the two men ask to go home and think about it for a few days before giving Jesus an answer? You be the judge; here is what we read in v.20 – “At once they left their nets and followed him.” In the very next verse, we again see Jesus extend an invitation, this time to James and John, to join Him. They too “immediately left the boat and their father and followed him.”

We find these words in Psalm 119:60 – “As soon as you command, I do what you say (CEV).”

It might be okay to procrastinate on doing certain things, but when it comes to responding to God, the only way to be obedient is to obey Him, completely and without delay.

What is God calling you to do that you keep putting off?

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