Proverbs 3:28
Do not say to your neighbor, ‘go and come again, tomorrow I will give it,’
when you have it with you.
Procrastination -obviously not only a 21st century problem! Several scriptures allude to workers who are not promptly paid. Or to justices that delay justice.
Justice delayed is justice denied! Think about that maxim and about why it is true.
Procrastination is something to stop doing.
Procrastination engenders a lot of nasty things. When the boss assigns three weeks to work on the project, but the employee spends only the night before… just getting it to the point of being passable – the boss has been robbed of the project’s full potential; the employee has secretly weighted the scales so that the boss thinks he’s getting all that he paid for; and a one-night production goes into the world as a three week production… though it cannot bear the weight that a three-week production could.
Proverbs 18:9: Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.
The mindset of procrastination can infect your whole thinking and damage your reasoning ability. So that your bad behavior doesn’t appear as badly to you. Yes, I’m giving my family the silent treatment but I’ll get stop doing it eventually…
We can get to the point of constantly excusing our behavior by remembering our intention of someday changing.
Rick and Shelly have both grown up in upper middle class homes. They got married and are now in grad school in business and medicine. Both sets of their parents have decided that they’ll back off from supporting them financially and allow them to fend by themselves. Because of this they have to live in an apartment in a neighborhood unlike anything they’ve lived in before or will live in again. What’s the temptation?
To not fulfill their obligations as a neighbor. To not fulfill their obligations as a churchmen. Because their situation is manifestly transitory. It’s easy to act out from: I’m not who I really am yet. And so, in the present, those around them go without.
Easy thoughts: I need to get these clothes or acquire these tools or reach this point in life before I’m ready to give people all that I should. I can be blunt and rude and distant while I’m in this stage.
This particular instruction in wisdom is helpful because it reminds us that procrastination is personal, there’s always a victim involved, sometimes called “neighbor.”
Consider in what ways, big and small, you’re delaying fulfilling your obligations. Think about why you’re doing that. Pay people what they’re owed. And stay current with your obligations.
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