Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Procrastination is never good and Someday never comes (James 4:13-14) with a story about a woman in St. Louis who ignored "just a few bees".


SCRIPTURE: James 4:13-14 (TM)
And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, "Today - at the latest, tomorrow - we're off to such and such a city for the year. We're going to start a business and make a lot of money." You don't know the first thing about tomorrow. You're nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing.

STORY as told by Robert T. Wenz:
In Saint Louis in 1984, an unemployed cleaning woman noticed a few bees buzzing around the attic of her home. Since there were only a few, she made no effort to deal with them. Over the summer the bees continued to fly in and out the attic vent while the woman remained unconcerned, unaware of the growing city of bees.
The whole attic became a hive, and the ceiling of the second-floor bedroom finally caved in under the weight of hundreds of pounds of honey and thousands of angry bees. While the woman escaped serious injury, she was unable to repair the damage of her accumulated neglect. 
OBSERVATION:
Don’t you love the optimism that is found in the musical, Annie, especially in the signature song, Tomorrow: The sun'll come out … Tomorrow … So ya gotta hang on … 'Til tomorrow … Come what may … Tomorrow! Tomorrow! … I love ya Tomorrow! … You're always … A day … A way! Life would be a cruel joke if we couldn’t have an optimistic spirit and a God given hope. But …

Procrastination digs a deep hole what all too often becomes too large to crawl out of; creates a weight too heavy to carry; becomes a burden too large to handle. Most of us are experts of putting off until tomorrow those decisions and tasks that really should be handled today. Like the gentleman who had a pain, a growing pain. He ignored it thinking that it would go away, but it didn’t. Finally he went to the doctor … cancer. “How long have you had this pain?” “A couple of years.” “Why didn’t you come in earlier?”  “I was fearful that it was cancer.” “Well, it wasn’t but it is now.” That is an extreme case, but illustrative of how a circumstance can grow to become a horrible problem. It is even more tragic when people are involved in our procrastination.

We make great plans to do this or that … someday. We’ll make plans to spend time with so and so … someday. We’ll write that important person … someday. We’ll make cookies with a child … someday. We’ll go see a dear relative, a friend, a neighbor … someday. But you know as well as I do that “someday” never comes.

Here is an interesting rule for living: If we think or say that “Someday I will (fill in the blank)” twice, then we have to do it. No more putting it off, no more postponing, no more procrastination … no more. Why? Because God is placing that person or activity on our heart and we should always follow His lead.

PRAYER:
Move us … motivate us … to do what you are placing on our hearts to do. 

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