Day 27: Procrastination, Subtitle to be Written Later

Hello my name is David, and I am a procrastinator.

I can see the people in the circle now, smiling politely and replying "Hi, David." It seems I wondered into a meeting of Procrastinators Anonymous.

You see, there are two reasons I'm writing this post past 2:00 AM (It is now 2:10 AM actually, though I know this post will get scheduled for 6:00, sorry of the confusion). The first reason is that I like to stay up late, and I would likely be up this late regardless of whether or not I have finished my writing yet. The other reason is that I procrastinated on my writing today. But fear not loyal readers, for this is not the first time that I have procrastinated on my writing, and I have come through so far ;-)

I fear that procrastination is one of those obstacles that we have pretty much ignored as a modern day problem to the Christian walk (like gluttony, ever hear a sermon on that?). But it can certainly get in the way.

Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead." (Matthew 8:21-22, NIV)

Now obviously this passage could have a variety of interpretations, and there is a lot of culture involved here behind the scenes we don't see, but here's one potential thought. Jesus calls this disciple to come follow him but he decides he will do it later, he has other things to do first. He procrastinates on the call of Christ.

I do this kind of thing all the time. And my reasons are a lot weaker than this disciple! I see what I need to be doing, but I just simply push it back, and back, and back...

Maybe your a procrastinator like me, maybe not. But Christ has called us to live in the present, since we don't know what the future holds for us. Procrastination helps no one but only serves to make ourselves feel better for the moment. This is one principle that I need to be reminded of more often and one I need to work on practically and pray for God's power to overcome.

So I'd like to say I won't procrastinate any more on writing my daily post, but I can't guarantee it. I'll try though. Imagine, instead of forty days of writing, if I did forty days of zero procrastination. I can't even fathom how I would go about that. It'll have to start a few days at a time.

See you tomorrow.