Note: We’re having a pre-Easter sale in our Etsy shop right now! Get 30-50% off of planner pages, Bible-study printables, Bible tabs, greeting cards and more! Click here to go there.
P.S. This printable planner is 8.5 x 11, but I will be posting one that is 8 1/2 x 5 3/8 soon as well.
My husband and I got to talking about procrastination today and how unsettling it can be when left unchecked. I remember a few years back, we had a laundry basket of junk sitting just outside of our bedroom door. It stayed there for weeks, maybe months before I decided to put it away. The thing is we got so used to stepping over it, that we barely noticed it was there.
I’m bad at tax time, because I hate paper work. Since I’m always putting it off instead of getting it done, I feel stressed out for a few weeks every Spring.
Every day a message pops up on my computer asking if I want to update, and every day I click “ask me tomorrow.”
The Bible says,
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. (Proverbs 6:6-8, KJV)
In other words, she’s a lot more organized than I am. That little ant is wise enough to do what needs to be done before it gets out of hand.
People procrastinate for a number of reasons. A common reason–one that I deal with often is that my priorities are out of whack. I’m putting aside anything that takes me out of my comfort zone until life is so uncomfortable that I have to deal with it. Another reason we put things off is fear. Sometimes we don’t want to face the inevitable. We don’t want to talk to that person. We don’t want to deal with our problems, and so we bury our head in the sand in hopes it will all go away.
Here’s the thing about procrastination–it only makes things worse. It takes the little stress that you have and stretches it out over time. You can choose to be stressed out for weeks (maybe years), or you can do what needs to be done today.
We serve a wise and faithful God. He’s not a God of confusion, He’s not a God of disorder, and He hasn’t given us a . Spirit of fear. He knows the peace that comes with a clutter-free life. He knows the joy that comes to those who prepare. And so He instructs us to go to the ant and to learn from her ways. Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, not when it’s out of control.
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Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. (Proverbs 6:6-8, KJV)
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Darlene Schacht and her husband Michael live in Manitoba Canada where the summers are beautiful and the winters are cold. Together they’ve come to learn that relationships aren’t always easy, but that marriage, the way God intended it to be, is a treasure worth fighting for.
She began her publishing journey about twelve years ago when she pioneered one of the first online magazines for Christian women, known at the time as “Christian Women Online Magazine.” After three years, Darlene left CWO to blog as a solo author at Time-Warp Wife Ministries.
It was also during this transition that she worked alongside actress Candace Cameron Bure to write the NYT Best-Selling book, Reshaping it All: Motivation for Spiritual and Physical Fitness. Reshaping it All was the winner of both the 2011 USA Best Book Awards and the 2012 Christian Reading Retailers Choice Awards.
Author of more than 15 books, Darlene continues to write and to minister to her readers through her blog at TimeWarpWife.com.
Connect with Darlene:
Facebook: @timewarpwife
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You are loved by an almighty God,
Darlene Schacht
The Time-Warp Wife