“A few days later Felix and his
wife, Drusilla, who was Jewish, sent for Paul and listened to him talk about a
life of believing in Jesus Christ. As Paul continued to insist on right
relations with God and his people, about a life of moral discipline and the
coming Judgment, Felix felt things getting a little too close for comfort and
dismissed him. “That’s enough for today. I’ll call you back when it’s
convenient.”- Acts
24:24-26 (The Message, MSG).
“… Earth's history is strewn with the wrecks of half-finished plans and unexecuted
resolutions. ‘Tomorrow’ is the excuse of the lazy and refuge of the
incompetent.” - Nolbert Quayle (British
Ambassador).
“NOW is the ACCEPTABLE TIME….” (II
Corinthians 6:2).
I
am honoured to be invited to share my thoughts on a very important subject
matter that concerns humanity in general and Christian youths in particular.
We
thank God for the grace of life and for the privilege of Sonship without which
we would not have known one another and may not have had reasons to gather as
we are doing today.
As
citizens of God’s Kingdom, our goal is to encourage the enlargement of God’s
Kingdom in hearts and communities of men. Scripture speaks of God’s Kingdom in
three dimensions. At John 3:3, 5, Jesus says:
…“Truly, truly, I say
to you, unless one is born again he cannot SEE the Kingdom of God. …Truly, truly, I say to you, unless
one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot ENTER into the Kingdom of God…..”
First
is the dimension of seeing; second is the dimension of entering; third is the
dimension of inheritance. This was what Apostle Paul spoke about in II
Corinthians 6:9-10 when he, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote,
Or do you
not know that the unrighteous will not INHERIT
the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor
idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor
thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers
will inherit the Kingdom of God.
There
is no gainsaying the fact that as Christians we have seen and entered
the Kingdom (the Church) – what remains, therefore, is inheritance (making
Heaven at last!). To help us achieve this goal, Congregations across the world
are encouraging and engaging in intra and inter-congregational fellowships. This
gathering is one of those efforts at encouraging spiritual and personal growth
of Christians.
The
need for mutual strengthening of one another is seen in Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” Writing to Roman
Christians, Apostle Paul at Romans 1:11-12 emphasized the need for
purpose-driven and eternity-oriented fellowships when he wrote,
For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual
gift to you, that you may be established; that
is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both
yours and mine.
Christian Fellowship is
mutually beneficial. In the days of Prophet Isaiah, servants of God were
actively encouraging one another through fellowship. At Isaiah 41:6-7, we read:
Each one helps his neighbour and says to his brother, “Be
strong!” So the craftsman encourages the smelter, and he who smooths metal with the hammer encourages him who beats the
anvil, saying of the soldering, “It is good.” And he fastens it with nails, so that it will not totter.
This
Gathering, as always, is for Christians to share in the Word, encourage one
another in matters that pertain to life and godliness (cf. II Peter 1:3).
CHRISTIAN YOUTH AND PROCRASTINATION
The
topic assigned to me is an important one: “Christian Youth and Procrastination.”
The goal is to help us take decisive actions towards fulfilling our
God-ordained destinies.
WHAT IS PROCRASTINATION?
1. It
is being busy doing things you are not supposed to do in preference for things
you are supposed to do.
2.
Napoleon Hill
once remarked that “Procrastination is
the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been
done the day before yesterday.”
3. Procrastination is opportunity’s greatest enemy. When we
procrastinate, we Pass Over Opportunities Repeatedly (POOR).
Procrastination
is a universal malady that has afflicted billions of souls irrespective of race
and religion. Procrastination is an enemy of success. If you must make progress
in life, one of the enemies you must fight to a standstill is PROCRASTINATION.
You
are your own best friend when you overcome procrastination, but your own worst
enemy if you do not. The day I discovered the evils of procrastination to
destiny fulfillment was the day I stopped believing that someone somewhere was
hell-bent on causing my downfall or is the mastermind of my misfortune.
I
have come to realize that many of the problems we have in life are decision problems. There is always a
prize to pay for not making the right decision. Are you aware that indecision
is a decision?
Any time you are undecided about
something, you have taken a decision about that matter. At I Kings 18:21, we
read:
Elijah came near
to all the people and said, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If
the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow
him.” But the people did not answer him a word.
The
truth of life is that no one can successfully stand on the fence – you are
either for this or for that. In Entrepreneurship we say that “it is a risk not to take risk.” Again,
you must have heard that when we fail to
plan, we actually plan to fail.
Everything
in life revolves around decision. It is this decision that procrastination
seeks to destroy. However, when we procrastinate, we have invariably decided
not to do what we ought to do. By this we shirk our responsibilities to
ourselves and to our generations. When we lose opportunity by not taking
action, we become indebted to the action we failed to act upon.
Procrastination
is not only the thief of time, but the enemy of time. Omar Iban, Caliph of a
Muslim State from 633-644 AD once remarked, “There
are four things which come not back: time past, neglected opportunity, the
spoken word and the sped arrow.”
THRUST OF MY PRESENTATION
The
thrust of this presentation is: Do not
leave for tomorrow what you should do today. Why? Because today is that tomorrow we talked about yesterday while
today will become the yesterday we will refer to in the ‘tomorrow’ that never comes. In view of this, TODAY is the only
currency that we have to make the transactions needed for a better today and a
glorious future.
Do
not wait for life to happen, make life happen.
Do not live life by chance, but by choice. Live life by design, not by
happenstance. In his book, Reposition
Yourself: Living Life Without Limits, T. D. Jakes (2007:4, 8) observed and
asks,
Many of us attribute success or failure to fate or
some external force. We believe that we have to be in the right place at the
right time in order to achieve, much like winning the lottery. But success is a
direct consequence of our wanting a more abundant life and working hard to earn
it, like wadding through the mud puddles of life toward the beckoning sea….
Isn’t it time for you to direct your hope toward building your dreams instead
of waiting on your dreams to build themselves?”
Achieving
your goals in life is not a serendipity affair – it is not a chance happening.
Actions and reactions remain equal and opposite. What you sow into life is what
you receive back from it. What you throw at life is what life throws back at
you. You must learn to go for what you want even when others are not prepared
to help you birth your dreams. To do this, you must deal with the enemy of your
progress – procrastination!
Those
who procrastinate are in the Valley of Decision (Joel 3:14). At I Kings
20:38-40, a scenario which bespeaks of procrastination is painted vividly:
Then
the prophet went and took a position along the road, with a bandage over his
eyes, waiting for the king. It wasn’t long before the king happened by. The man
cried out to the king, “Your servant was in the thick of the battle when a man
showed up and turned over a prisoner to me, saying, ‘Guard this man with your
life; if he turns up missing you’ll pay dearly.’ But I got busy doing one thing
after another and the next time I looked he was gone.” The king of Israel said,
“You’ve just pronounced your own verdict.”–The
Message (MSG)
In Bible,
Governor Felix exemplified a procrastinator per excellence. At Acts 24:24-26 we
read:
A few days later
Felix and his wife, Drusilla, who was Jewish, sent for Paul and listened to him
talk about a life of believing in Jesus Christ. As Paul continued to insist on
right relations with God and his people, about a life of moral discipline and
the coming Judgment, Felix felt things getting a little too close for comfort
and dismissed him. “That’s enough for today. I’ll call you back when it’s
convenient.” -The
Message (MSG).
Felix never did!
THINGS
TO KNOW ABOUT PROCRASTINATORS AND
PROCRASTINATION
1. A
procrastinator is a wheel barrow, not a propeller.
2. The
language of procrastinators is, “I will; I will” but they never will.
3. A
procrastinator is a person who postpones a duty for no definite day and
suddenly wakes up to realize that there is no time left, goes into panic mode
and finally resorts to Fire Brigade approach.
If
you live life this way, you will never amount to anybody and if you ever did, you
will be operating below your capacity.
DEALING WITH PROCRASTINATION
1. Live
Each Day at A Time.
Kay Lyons Stockham once remarked,
“Yesterday is a cancelled check; tomorrow is a
promissory note; today is the only cash you have - so spend it wisely.”
2.
Do Not Bank on Tomorrow Because There is no “Tomorrow.”
Do you remember the “No Credit” notice hung on most provision stores of yester years – “No
credit today, come tomorrow”?
There is no tomorrow (only a future). We only
have yesterday and today. Therefore, every action must be taken within the context
of today. At Matthew 6:34, Jesus said,
“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for
the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the
day is the evil
thereof.” (KJV)
Proverbs
27:1 says,
“Do
not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.”
James 4:13-14 says,
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a
city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do
not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor
that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
We
are not guaranteed tomorrow. Delaying to do something until tomorrow may run
counter to our successes.
3.
Take
Action, NOW!
No other time other than NOW is
the right time to do it. NOW is the right time to act. In Scripture, the time
for action is always NOW. At II Corinthians 6:1-2 we read:
And
working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in
vain for He says, “At the acceptable time I listened to you, And on the day of
salvation I helped you.” Behold, NOW
is “the acceptable time,” behold, NOW
is “the day of salvation.”
God’s language
for action is “TODAY.” Hebrews 3:7-8 says,
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit
says: “Today, if you will hear His
voice, “Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in
the wilderness….”
4.
Do
Not Be A Talker, Be A Doer.
And
in this I give advice: It is to your advantage not only to be doing what you
began and were desiring to do a year ago; but now you also must complete
the doing of it; that
as there was a
readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion….- 2 Corinthians 8:10-12.
This group of Christians had made plans to do
something a year ago, but kept procrastinating about it. Apostle Paul wrote to
encourage them to do what they ought to do. He urged them not to be talkers, but doers. That is what God is asking from all of us today – become doers not talkers. “Professors”
(those who say they will) are not “possessors”
(those who own their dreams). It takes deliberate actions to become a
possessor!
CONCLUSION
Resolve
to reinvent yourself, re-sharpen your focus and increase your productivity by
dealing with the insidious monster of
procrastination. I encourage you to take that step you have always
procrastinated about:
1. Study
that book, enroll into that class and go for that skill you have always wanted.
2. Cultivate
that relationship or mend that relationship you have always wanted.
3. Engage
in that evangelistic activity you have always procrastinated about.
4. Settle with God today by reconciling with
Him through faith in His Son Jesus
Christ.
5. What are those things you have been
procrastinating about?
Time, it is, for us to do what we all
should do when we should do them. That done, we will forever put behind us the
monster of procrastination.
God bless us all.
Hilary Johnson Chukwuma Chukwurah
