And Go!

Are you a procrastinator?  Do you put things off until the last minute?  Do you try to eek out every little minute before you need to go somewhere and often arrive barely on time or a little late?  Does this sound like a bad informercial to you?

I am a procrastinator.  Very true.  And it’s gotten worse over the years.  From high school to college to seminary, my procrastination and procrastinating skills increased exponentially.  I think part of my main fear of working on a doctorate one day is that there’s no way I can get any worse at waiting to the last minute.

So tonight is one of those hyper get everything done times.  Tomorrow morning some of the Winthrop, Charleston and Furman Wesley crews will leave for Student Forum in Indiana at 5 am.  This means Narcie needs to wake up at 4 so that I get to Wesley at 4:30 to load up.  This is not a good thing.  I should definitely be in bed right now.  But it’s also a newsletter night.  You know I can rattle off a lot of random nothingness until I need to actually turn in something for print with a deadline.  Nothing makes me not want to do it more.

Why is that?

Why can I languish on the to do list for days on end but wait until a looming deadline or trip or big event or conference to actually start cranking things out?

Now I was not one of the folks thinking we were suddenly going to be raptured this past weekend and I sure hope we don’t see as much news coverage, facebook statuses and other opinions when the new date of October 21st rolls around.  As much as I don’t exactly get where these people were coming from, I can understand the great feeling of getting your life in order.  For me, deadlines or trips or things are those times of organizing things so that I have to get them done.  It’s nice to have things organized.  It’s nice to mark things off the list.  It’s nice to finally do that thing we’ve been dreading whether that’s something big or small, repairing a broken relationship or finally taking that jacket to the dry cleaners.

So no, I’m not leaving with everything done.  I wish.  But this is reality.  However – I’ve done what I need to so that I can go in peace.  And of course try to do something on the way during that long drive.

Maybe we’re not people that believe in a set date for rapture.  I’m not even though I know the Hallelujah chorus is going to be sung at some point and it’s coming.  But, we can try to prepare and plan and keep walking on this journey moving towards that beautiful feeling of contentment and new life and peace and that sense of completion when we have done what we need to do, what we want to do, what we’re called to do.

What’s still on your list?  What’s unfinished for you?  Not just at work, but at home, in your family, in your friendships, in your heart?  It’s easy to look around a house that you’re thinking about selling and see all the things you’ve got to do and that you need to start working on little by little, but it’s harder to look into our lives and do the same thing.

So in the spirit of Spring cleaning and the beginning of summer let’s GO!  Take a break from procrastinating for just a bit and rock it out where God is leading us.