Persistence
Stop Procrastinating — Ecclesiastes 11 4
Procrastination from setting off to do God’s work and make the changes necessary in your life is draining. It denies you from experiencing the “hundredfold” that God has in mind when you pursue Him above all else.
So the very first thing to stop procrastinating on is to pursue Jesus and first seek the kingdom of God. For many people, that means moving beyond the comfort zone of Sunday sermons and grace before meals and ask the really hard questions of what it means to leave behind everything for Jesus, because it doesn’t make sell everything to Goodwill and roam the earth (unless you’ve been specifically called to that!)
Let’s take a look at one verse that gets it:
Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.
How does the saying go? Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans. Oh, plans are important, but what’s the difference between the making of a plan and an excuse?
If you want to know how to stop procrastinating, one of the things is to look at what this verse is saying. It’s saying that if you’re just watching and observing, or in another translation, just worrying, then you want experience the harvest.
That’s why I love putting multiple translations into the “Hundredfold Now!” e-book, because you get a true sense and wisdom of the scripture.
Worry and the desire for perfection could be what is stopping you from taking the first step in your plans. Of course, you have to have good, Godly plans in place, but before any of that, are you procrastinating from planting the seeds in the soil of your own heart to truly grow in Christ and seek first the Kingdom of God?
We don’t need to be perfect people to do that. We don’t need to worry about the other matters. These are two typical forms of procrastination — worry of failure, things we cannot control like the weather, and the desire for perfect weather, which can be perfect conditions which also will never come.
As it says in another translation, “Get on with your life” and move into the chaos.
What action steps could you be taking now to first move past worry and to stop seeking the perfect condition?
Perseverance Counts
As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. (James 5:11 NIV)
Don’t give up. I am sure you have already heard the countless stories of people who faced rejection, and they kept going forward. I myself have seen businesses or companies sticking with what seemed "impossible" or just a plain "bad idea" and eventually something turned around.
And then there are the "standard" stories we always here: Abraham Lincoln who kept going despite losing most of his elections; Colonel Sanders who slept in his car till he could find someone who believed in his chicken; I remember reading about a hair stylist who sold is products out of a car, was cashless for much of the time, till they finally have become the biggest hair-products company in the world.
Job is an example of persistence (versus his patience) in the face of trials. Satan "afflicted Job with painful sores" which Job scraped using a "piece of broken pottery."
It’s a powerful image of pain and torment. His own wife said, "are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"
His reply and response:
Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble"? In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. (Job 2:10 NIV)
In the face of being, he did a couple of things:
- He was persistent and would not tarnish his integrity
- He stayed faithful to God and did not curse him, despite other people telling him to do so
- He saw that God can give both good and bad…and still trusted
I was in the middle of a deal which could’ve given me a nice, recurring, passive income. I’d been working with this customer for a while. I had asked to work with one of their vendors to get more technical information and try to also become their vendor for some of the equipment. What I didn’t know was that there was tension and politics going on between this vendor and my customer and so my email trying trying to assuage the vendor we want to cooperate with them got oddly misconstrued, sent up to the CIO in a very political fashion, and crashed the proposal to the ground.
Done, that was it — hard work, quality service, done in by politics and my own mis-wording.
But I have to look at it — if God wanted this to happen, it would’ve happened. And I looked at whether there was some sin in my own life in handling it — the only thing was that the guy I spoke to had a thick "red-neck" accent and was being suspicious towards me and, having had some very bad experiences as a minority with such folk, felt a tightening and pre-judgment in my own heart. And so perhaps God felt it was more important that I examine that.
Or…this could’ve been a very dangerous and litigous situation if done improperly and with all the machinations. I won’t know. But God knows, and I’ve got to trust in it.
Although I experience the "sores" from losing and not having the recurring income which I badly need — I need to focus on a couple things:
- Keep persistent: don’t let rejection take you down
- Trust that good and bad can come from God: perhaps it’s better this way, I just don’t know it yet
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