[This is one in a series of devotional reflections prepared for Horley Baptist Church during December 2022]
The commandant of the slave-cave where I received the final years of my formal education had a number of key expressions that he would share at frequent intervals. One of them was “Procrastination is the thief of time”, it was a sentiment that few of his students fully appreciated when they heard it. Later research revealed that it was not an original thought: it was a maxim spoken by Charles Dickens’s character Mr Micawber in the novel ‘David Copperfield’.
The sentiment being expressed may have had little impact on those of us in their late teens who anticipated a future in which there would be plenty of time to do things at a later date. Even in later years there is a temptation to put things (like finishing this reflection) off until tomorrow.
Both the American writer Mark Twain and the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde made similar comments suggesting that we should “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well”. Before we are tempted to follow that advice we should remember that Oscar Wilde died at a relatively young age; his tomorrows came to an abrupt end.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth the eponymous anti-hero lamented the rapid passage of time. His homily on the futility of life included these lines:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
The General Confession in the Anglian Book of Common Prayer includes the phrase “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done”. When today has become ‘yesterday’ and tomorrow is ‘today’, will you be satisfied with how you passed those hours that are now history?
The Bible too has things to say about procrastination. We are no doubt familiar with the passage from Ecclesiastes which reminds us that there is an appropriate time for every purpose under heaven.[1] Possibly less familiar is this verse from later in the same book:
Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.
Ecclesiastes 9:12
In a comment on the same chapter Charles Spurgeon said:
No man ever served God by doing things tomorrow. If we honour Christ and are blessed, it is by the things which we do today. Whatever you do for Christ throw your whole soul into it.[2]
Jesus himself urged his followers to avoid procrastinating about the things that God has called us to do.[3]
Now, what are you planning to do tomorrow?
[1] Ecclesiastes 3 v1-8
[2] Morning and Evening: Daily Bible Readings, p. 420.
[3] John 9 v4
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Steve Humphreys
Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © the Author
