"DO IT NOW!"

No one knows what tomorrow may bring. The good that we would do must be done while we have the strength and the presence of mind to do it. Putting it off till later can easily become forgetting it altogether.

Such procrastination not only affects our own happiness but the ones we might potentially bless. Others might be sorely needing our kind words or kind deeds, which the Lord is prompting us to say and do. Not all urges to do good things may be His leading. But if we are listening to Him as He listened to His Father, we will probably hear Him saying more often than not, “Do it now.”

Write that letter or text now, make that phone call now, plan to visit a lonely person today. Don't wait for your bedtime prayers to pray for someone. When they come to mind, it may be Jesus letting you know they need your prayer of blessing right now.

Procrastinating actually assumes too much. The reality is that time is fleeting and stops for no one. Doing things we think of now is logically informed by the words in the above cartoon: “Today is seldom too early; tomorrow is usually too late.”

The following poem from my book Poems Between Here and Beyond tries to express the need to be aware of the good we can do while we have the time. It's a good way to wrap up these few thoughts on the exhortation to "do it now."

     CARING

This world around us surges—
   duties vie
      for all our time,
      our energies,
      our care. 

But greater Duty urges,
   “Don’t pass by
      a hurting heart
      with burdens hard
      to bear!” 

Routine is not our master,
   nor is fear,
      or vanity,
      or trivia,
      or show.... 

Amid a day’s disaster,
   let’s live here
      to lighten loads
      and griefs, before
      we go. 

— David L. Hatton, 2/23/2016

"Do it now!" And the Lord bless you in it!