p. 6 | PROCRASTINATION

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 11, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 10.

PROCRASTINATION

“Procrastination,” says Young, “is the thief of time.” It is more than this; it is the robber and despoiler of character.

It is not so much the failure to see the right way, as to act upon the right, that turns men to destruction.

In the goodness of God the first impulse to come to the soul of the normal man is the impulse to approve the right. Man’s better self acknowledges the truth and the right.

But if to do the right, to live the truth, involves a cross, the selfish plea of “putting-off” comes in. The tempter suggests that so much is involved in the matter that we ought to “wait awhile. Business interests will suffer, loss of prestige and social standing will ensue; and perhaps there may be another side. Wait awhile.”

And waiting awhile means the benumbing of conscience, means the loss of resolution, means the loss of inspiration in acting promptly on what we believed to be right; means that the heart has been yielded as a parley-ground to the enemy, and that his representative is received on equal terms with the best good judgment, with a good conscience, with God’s angel. Needless to say, the parley usually ends in the yielding of the principle and the victory of evil.

Archias, the chief governor of Thebes, at a feast received an urgent letter which uncovered a plot to kill him and overthrow the government. “This is no time,” said the pleasure-lover, “to trouble us with business; we shall consider of that to-morrow.” But “to-morrow” he was lying dead, and another was chief governor.

A young man, contrary to his mother’s wishes, entered a saloon “just for a minute.” He tarried; a stabbing affray took place; and he never came out alive.

Many a young man and young woman say, “Yes, I believe in Christianity, and I mean to be a Christian sometime. But not to-day.” But

“That far distant sometime kept ever in view, Always fades from our touch as the diamonds in dew.”

To many a heart it never comes. The conscience grows less tender and the heart more susceptible to the deceptions of pleasure and prosperity.

“We mean to do it, some day, some day We mean to slacken the fevered rush That is wearing our very souls away, And grant to our goaded hearts a hush That is holy enough to let them hear The footsteps of angels drawing near.

“We mean to do it, ah! I never doubt. When the burden of daytime toil is o’er, We will sit and muse when the stars come out, As the patriarch sat at the open door, To list, with heavenward gazing eye, For footsteps of angels passing by.

“The day that we dreamed of comes at length When tired of every mocking guest, When broken in spirit and shorn of strength, We drop ourselves at the door of rest, And wait and watch while the day wanes on, But the angels we meant to call are gone.”

Dear soul, your time to decide for God is to-day. You may wail with the old ruler, “O call back yesterday, bid time return,” but it will not, howsoever bitter your cry. Wait not for a more convenient season. When the duty presents itself, do it. When opportunity comes, grasp it. When God calls, answer. Use the moments.

“Time is eternity; Pregnant with all eternity can give.”

Use it for God. Put not off till to-morrow what you should do to-day.

“Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercy of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene.”

God’s mercy of a moment is sufficient; but to him who continually despises the moments, the merciful moment passes unknown, unseen. “Behold now is the acceptable time.” “To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”