I’ll Get to It

As I sit at my desk, I am overwhelmed by all the piles around me. I have a habit of placing files or books on my desk when I think they are important and I don’t want to forget them. In teaching, however, there are a number of things that are priority, and so I often end up with a perpetual mess.

Let’s face it – we have all done it. We pile stuff, collect things, leave messes, and so on, usually with the mindset that we will get to it later. Or perhaps it is the emails unread and unanswered or financial matters that need our attention that are clogging our personal space, waiting for attention. There are very few areas of our lives where there isn’t the potential to put things off.

We can have all the resolutions in the world, but we will still do it. We fall behind, neglect, or ignore things that need our attention. We get busy and think that we will somehow manage to tackle it…sometime.

Now whether we get our dishes or filing done today or tomorrow is not earth shattering in itself. It might be more annoying to leave things or make the task more challenging.

But what about in our spiritual lives? How many of us indicate that we know reading God’s Word is important but that we feel we just don’t have time for it right now? Or perhaps we know we should pray, but exhaustion takes over and it gets pushed to the wayside.

We are not the only ones to feel like this. The Apostle Paul explains his personal battle this way:

“For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7:19-20 NIV)

Paul is not making excuses here. Instead, he is defining the root cause of all our challenges – sin. In our sinful world, even our best intentions will not make the grade.

The Apostle Paul had an amazing walk with our Lord. He knew firsthand how God can change a person’s life from despair to hope. Yet, even this great teacher and preacher struggled with doing the right thing.

The devil loves to nag at us. He encourages us to procrastinate, ignore, or do less of a job. He delights in the misshapen, haphazard, and disorganized.

How do we deal with that? It is with God’s strength that we can move forward in His grace and mercy.

Paul concludes Romans 7 with thanks that in Christ we are delivered from sin and the power of the devil. That is a theme in much of his writing. When we are saved from sin through our belief in the redeeming work of Jesus, no, we won’t have a perfect life on this side of heaven – but, we will win the battle.

My friend, are you mired in thoughts of all that you “should” be doing. Ask God to help you determine what is most important and to give you strength to do what matters most – now.

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