The promise of tomorrow is alluring. It’s easy to believe the good we want to do can just wait until later. But it’s pretentious to assume tomorrow will come. And it’s a sin to know to do good but don’t do it because we’re saving it for later.
Of course, there’s wisdom in not rushing ahead with every new idea that pops into our head. There’s a place for restraint and patience – leveraging delays today for a greater good tomorrow. This is how we invest in tomorrow. But investing and waiting is not the same as procrastination.
Pride is often at the root of procrastination. It’s delaying action with the assumption we will still have plenty of time later. And many of us are guilty of this sin with the deep desires of our heart and the calling God has placed on our life.
There is good our faith prompts us to do – reaching out to a friend, writing a book, having a difficult but needed conversation, or the like. We sense the need to offer our strength in a meaningful way, but we keep telling ourselves that we’ll do it once things slow down, the kids get older, we’re more financially secure, or we feel more prepared.
To be sure, the cost of sin is death. And we slowly start to decay when we continually postpone the good God has already placed inside of us to express. Our sin is not open rebellion. But it is disobedience when our arrogance about tomorrow keeps us from doing the good that is ours to do today.
Today is the day to reach out, to speak, to build, to just begin. It’s the day to stop fantasizing about someday and to do the good God has already placed in our hearts. This is not to frantically spin our wheels with more activity, but to stop pretending we can keep the good God has given us in storage and call it faith.
Faith doesn’t wait on tomorrow. It brings good today in the strength God has given us.
Photo by Alex Jones on Unsplash
