God in the City

I just spent 3 minutes and 40 seconds doing something that I have avoided for 3 months.  Back in November, I had some annoying paperwork things to do and I set them aside.  After a few days, I moved the pile to another room so I didn’t have to look at the paperwork.  I forgot about for a few weeks, then found the pile again.  This time, I put it in my “scary box,” which is sort of a “to do” box of things I don’t want to do.  Over those months, I had this nagging feeling that there was something I needed to do, but instead of getting out the “to do” box,  I just had anxiety about not being caught up on things.  Over the past 3 months, this paperwork grew into a giant monster under the bed and got scarier and scarier with each passing day.

So today, when I got out the “to do” box and took care of all of this scary paperwork, I felt pretty ridiculous that it only took a few minutes to get it done.  There was nothing hard or scary in there, just writing stuff down, paying some  things, and filing it all when I was done.  Why did this get so big?  It got big because procrastination is fertilizer for anxiety. When I think of the peace of mind I could have had for the past few months, I feel ridiculous.

One of my daughters (they both read this, so I’m not going to embarrass them by saying which one) had to get a shot when she was little.  She carried on so much at the doctor’s office, that the sticker they gave her actually said, “I pitched a fit.”  She had a huge amount of drama over the anxiety of this needle going into her arm.  She was so busy fussing that she didn’t even realize that they had already finished giving her the shot.  Then she felt dumb.  It was really no big deal.  I can totally relate.  That’s exactly how I felt today when I finally got around to doing something that has been bugging me.

It seems that procrastination is a form of evil.  It steals our joy and disables us.  I don’t think we usually look at it as a spiritual problem, but I think it is closely related to that sin of sloth.  I guess admitting you have a problem really is the first step.  The next step is to take everything one thing at a time, do it right away, and get rid of anything that could make us less than the people God wants us to be.  If that doesn’t work, then we have to ask for help.  First, by asking God to help us, and secondly by asking someone else to help us when we need it.