At the close of every year, I take some time to reflect on the preceding 12 months of my life with an eye toward making changes in the coming year. This annual ritual of introspection helps me determine my "life theme" for the new year. This year, I have chosen "Put up or shut up" as my life theme because of my tendency to procrastinate. No doubt you've heard this expression before, perhaps, even said it yourself. Put up or shut up is a no nonsense expression, which denotes that some action is needed to resolve the issue at hand. In essence, Put up or shut up means either do what you've been talking about or stop talking about it; either take steps to change a situation or stop complaining about it. I like the intent behind Put up or shut up because it leaves no room for procrastination.
How many of us have fallen into the trap of procrastination? Procrastination is one of those temptations common to man and woman (1Cor10:13). It first starts as a tendency to put off everyday things like cleaning, paying off debts, making household repairs, exercising, or losing weight. But it doesn't stop there. At work or school, putting off becomes a habit resulting in missed deadlines, failure to complete projects on time and sub par performance. When fully ingrained, procrastination can attack the spiritual dimension causing a putting off or neglect of spiritual things like daily personal devotions, prayer, bible study, witnessing, and in the case of the unbeliever, even salvation (Heb 2:3). Procrastinators buy the lie that there will always be time to do it later ("I'll get back to it at SOME point."). But it never happens or when it does happen, it is often too late.
The Bible warns that procrastination in all forms has deadly consequences in eternity. It refers to procrastinators as "slothful and sluggards." A slothful person is "a loose, undisciplined person"; while a sluggard is just plain "lazy". Consider this illustration based on Eccl 10:18:
"A little slothfulness evolves into much slothfulness. It is habit-forming. When there is much slothfulness, things remain undone and the house itself starts to fall apart, decaying for lack of care while the sloth is out having fun or sleeping. If nobody steps forward to fix things in the moment, the house of the sloth decays. His responsibilities fall on everybody but him."
Like a decaying building, our spiritual house suffers decay when we put off and neglect those spiritual disciplines (i.e. personal devotions, prayer, bible study, witnessing) that are necessary in order to grow and to remain strong in the faith. I hear people say all the time, "I wish I knew the Bible better" or "I wish I could quote it" or "I wish I could pray like so and so" or "I've been thinking about joining a ministry but..." [What's stopping you?] Then there is the unsaved procrastinator who hears the gospel and says, "Sounds like me, but I'm not ready yet. Besides, I've got plenty of time." Sooner or later, procrastinators run out of time. Someone once said, "Ain't nothing to it but to do it." So if this sounds like you, or is you, don't procrastinate. Confess it. With God's help make the choice to "Put up or shut up in 2012.
