A relative of mine has the following sentence as her email signature: “By the road later you arrive at the place never.” I don’t know the author of that quote but what it says is clear and simple. It defines procrastination and the result of pushing things for tomorrow. I One day I had an interesting conversation with my daughter about “tomorrow”. When she was still young, I would choose her clothes every day. So on this particular day, I brought her what to wear but she did not like it, and we were running late to school. I had no time to argue, but she insisted and said that if I give her something else she wanted she will put them on the following day. She said, “I will wear this tomorrow.” I complied. On the following day, I brought her the same clothes. She looked at me and without any hesitation, she said, “mom I said I would wear this tomorrow, not today, is it tomorrow?” I was so angry but also amazed at how she got me. Despite her impertinence, she left me with a lesson that we all need: tomorrow will never come. If you keep pushing things to tomorrow, the chance is that you will never do them.

The Bible tells us not to boast about tomorrow. Don’t take tomorrow as if it belongs to you. It does not mean “do not plan for the future”. It means do not put to tomorrow what is supposed to be done today because you have no idea what that day called tomorrow would bring forth. Tomorrow is already full for what is supposed to be done then; why do you overload it with today’s work? A task to do, a call to make, a relationship to mend, a decision to take, anything that is supposed to be done today, do it today. The truth is that if you unnecessarily postpone something to tomorrow, it will not find its place there, so it will be postponed further. It may also be that tomorrow will be too late even if you do it, so you may be left living with regrets for the things you could have done but did not. Scripture tells us that “everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way” (1Corinthians 14:40). Procrastination is not fitting and is disorderly; it is inefficiency in the flesh; it leads to nowhere. As the Bible says, there is a time for everything, why put to another day what is for today?

In my experience as mentor and life coach, I realized that many people struggle with procrastination and don’t know how dangerous it is. They think it is a minor weakness, but it is among the top killers of success. I lost many opportunities due to procrastination. Some of them were big opportunities that could have changed my life forever. I hate to be reminded of them, and I hate procrastinating. I’m committed to being healed from it, and every day, I work toward that goal. I am not there yet, but I feel that I am on track. In one published interview of a successful manager I read, he said that one of the secrets of his success is that he never leaves on his desk any work for tomorrow. In other words, what has to be done today is done today. If you realize that you have been affected by procrastination in any way, resolve to fight it because otherwise, it will take you to the place called never.

Many years ago, I was waiting at a bus stop on a cold day in December. An elder woman was waiting with me at the bus stop. The bus delayed coming. The delay was long and unusual. When it is cold, even 2 minutes feel like half an hour. But it was more than a 15-minute delay. At some point, the old lady could not stand the cold anymore, and she said to me, “I am going to find a shelter”. I was so tempted to follow her, but the thought of missing the bus and waiting again made me feel colder. I had already suffered a lot, I did not want my suffering to be in vain, so I decided to wait outside against the cry of my flesh that needed a respite. Just a few minutes after the lady left, the bus came, and she missed it. I suppose she had to wait for more time under the same cold.

As human beings, we have no patience. If you find a naturally patient person, for whom being patient does not require efforts or the grace from heaven, know that you have found a rare gem, a rare species. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Therefore, it is not carnally possible. Unfortunately for us, everything good requires patience. Walking with God requires patience. His blessings, his intervention are defined in time and place. There is a designed place for you where God will bless you; there is a determined time when God will act. You have to be at that place when the time arrives so you can receive the promise. Any disciple who was not waiting in Jerusalem did not experience the first baptism in the Holy Spirit. You have to stay in the place where God told you to wait because if you move, you will miss your visitation. Sometimes, the conditions are so severe that waiting feels intolerable, and quitting would be understandable to anyone.  However, no one but yourself knows the importance of what you are waiting for. Let that reason gives you the courage to wait under that otherwise unbearable weather, and to wait patiently. Patience is more than waiting, though. It is also your attitude during the waiting phase. Patience is what allows you to be calm and grateful as you wait. It takes away murmuring and complaining from your mouth. Patience will keep your head cool, so it will not run crazy trying to find your solutions when God’s solution is taking time to come.

There is a saying in my country that if you are not patient, you will eat a half-cooked meal, and I learned that half-cooked food causes indigestion, diarrhea and sometimes food poisoning. Impatience bears disaster. King Saul became impatient as he waited for the prophet Samuel. The condition was so pressing for him that some soldiers started deserting. And on top of that, Samuel did not come at the set time he was supposed to come. In his impatience and haste, he tried to create his own solution and did what he was not supposed to do. Sometimes I feel sorry for him; he was under pressure, the enemy was approaching, and the prophet Samuel was nowhere to be seen! This is how sometimes we excuse ourselves and try to justify our actions. We say things like; the clock is ticking, God is not doing what he said he would do, let me find my own solution! It is the language of the flesh. Unfortunately for Saul, and unfortunately for anyone with such thinking, God does not excuse foolishness under no circumstances. He condemned Saul’s actions saying, “you have done a foolish thing..., now your kingdom will not endure” (1 Samuel 13:11-14). May God grant us the grace to be patient and to be grateful and hopeful as we wait to eat the well-cooked meal God is preparing for us.

I like to draw things, mostly when I’m bored with routine work at my workplace, or when I am in those meetings we all attend where you have no role to play other than sit there and listen. Some of my drawings are pretty that sometimes I want to keep them, others though, are so ugly because I drew over them over and over that I don’t even want to look at them twice. I always use a pencil to erase the ugly part later if more space is needed. In some cases, they are almost completely erased, but usually they are not and leave undeniable marks on the papers. So one day, a colleague, an old fellow in his seventies, saw me trying to erase things and approached me and said, “why are you erasing them? This is who you are; it is your CV.” I was startled by what he said, his words struck me deep and left me thinking. And it is true; we are what we do, our actions are our CV, it is a letter read by everyone.

When the Apostle Paul wrote the above verse to the Corinthians, he was telling them, “you are our work, everyone who sees you will judge if we did well or failed.” People judge us from what we do, not from what we say or think. Our good intentions or sugary speeches are meaningless. Our actions are like an open book and say loud what is inside us. Though some people may hide their evil hearts behind good acts, it is not generally the case. Like a fruit tells the story of the tree, our actions reveal or tell our story. And our drawing papers are the hearts of the people. Whatever our actions are, we are writing in the lives of our children, our spouses, our community and the people we meet every day. Some of our drawings will leave a lasting impact that cannot be erased. Though we have the gift of repentance through the blood of the Lamb, repentance will give us a chance to a new start but will not take away the consequences of our actions. Yes, we still have a chance, even when we have messed up a hundred times. But again, as the Bible encourages us, we ’don’t use that grace as an excuse to do whatever our sinful nature dictates us to do.

While attending a friend’s wedding some years ago, a friend of the married couple gave them a blank book as their wedding gift. He told them that it was to be their storybook, where they would write their story the way they want it. Like that couple, every day, we are given a blank page to write our story. Make sure you pay attention to what you write and how you write it. Most of our actions cannot be undone, and you cannot unsay what you said. No matter how hard I tried to erase the ugly things I had written, the paper did not go back to the initial state. It was stained for life. I’m reminded of how Esau lost his birthright. He thought it was a joke, but the Bible says that later when he wanted to recover it, he could not even though he tried with much begging and tears; he could not change what he had done (Hebrews 12:16-17). This day is a gift of a blank book from God to write your story. Whether you live one day, hundred or thousand days, make up your mind to write a story that you will not be ashamed of, a story that you will not want to later delete, because once done, it cannot be undone. However, the truth is that without Jesus, we can do nothing. It’s only through him that we have the wisdom and the will to achieve that goal.