THE PROBLEM OF PROCRASTINATION

Pastoral ministry, with all its demands and challenges, creates plenty of opportunity for procrastination. It’s very easy for a pastor to put off difficult or unpleasant duties almost indefinitely. Yet that’s not only a failure of duty, it’s a recipe for trouble.

How can pastors – and other Christian’s too – deal with this problem? Some years ago my attention was captured by a book I saw in a second-hand shop. It was called “Do It Now.” Knowing that it was probably full of self-help practical psychology I nevertheless bought it just in case it had something helpful to say.

My expectation proved correct. It was loaded with practical psychological insights and well-meaning advice. “Does your roof spouting need mending?” the author wrote; then “do it now!” “Do you have bills that you haven’t paid that you should have paid? Then do it now!” The refrain went on and on. The way to overcome crippling procrastination – a destroyer of relationships and a thief of time – is to get on and get the job done.

At a purely psychological level, this advice has some merit. When we have been putting off a duty or task, often what we need to do is to “bite the bullet” and get on and do it.

However, there are at least two problems with this approach. The first is that it casts us back on our own weak resources. In the end, the psychological remedy amounts to pulling yourself together and activating your own powers. And while that may sound simple and reasonable enough, it’s really the road to more failure and bigger problems.

A friend of mine once remarked on this when he was talking about popular self-help programmes. “I’ve tried many of them,” he said, “but all with the same result. I start out with a blaze of enthusiasm, but it’s not long before I run out of steam and fall by the wayside. Before I know it, I’m not only back where I was, but deeper in the mire. Each fresh failure makes me feel worse about myself.”

That points to the second problem with the purely psychological approach. It doesn’t deal with the root of the failure that caused us to procrastinate in the first place. Generally there is something deeper down that leads us to put off unpleasant tasks or responsibilities. Fear is one of those deeper things. We fear what the dentist might find when he examines our teeth, so we put off visiting him or her. Or it can be laziness. We just don’t want to put in the effort to do what has to be done so we keep avoiding it. But these are issues of the heart. And unless they are dealt with, every superficial “Do it now” kind of remedy will only remain that – a superficial behaviour adjustment that lasts only a short time.

Gospel remedies go to the deeper level. They trace behaviour patterns to heart conditions. And they are relentless in gently exposing what is going on in the heart. Is it fear? What does that say about where I am putting my trust? Have I made an idol of self-protection instead of learning to put my confidence in God’s presence and power to see me through trying situations? Or is it laziness? Have I made an idol of pleasure and self-fulfilment? Have these usurped the place of loving God and loving others with all my heart? If so, then I have an idol in the soul that is the deepest cause of my problem.

The gospel remedy to this situation is not one of simply “trying harder to do better.” Sure, there is effort and commitment required to doing the right thing. But that’s not where change begins. It begins rather by facing the underlying sin in our hearts. It admits this, and takes it to Christ and to his cross. There, in humble brokenness, we admit our weakness and inability and cast ourselves on his might. And there we find the grace not only of forgiveness but also of the renewing power of the Holy Spirit. Our admitted weakness puts us in the place where we can be helped.

And helped we are when the Lord meets us at the point of our true need. Through his Word and Spirit he is able to strengthen us inwardly by renewing our minds and empowering our wills (Ephesians 3:16). Fear and timidity give way to the spirit of love, power and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). Tasks that once seemed beyond us can be attacked with trusting vigour.

Yes, we must act, and act with all our power. But now we are not acting alone. There is power beyond our own at work in us and with us – the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, power that is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 1:19, 20; 3:20). That’s the gospel solution to the problem of procrastination. That’s what makes it such good news.