"Words words words I'm so sick of words!!…" Audrey Hepburn’s view of the lack of action on the part of a reluctant Rex Harrison in my fair lady. This is not to say I'm a star struck fan of musicals, rather, a neat little way of entering into my topic!
I wonder if God ever gets fed up with our words! Yes lord I'm going to do that, yes lord I've made a commitment… again. I fear our words sometimes don't add up with our actions. Our mouths are saying “yea yea” while our actions are saying “no no”! This is a discrepancy in our nature that desperately needs addressed.
So this problem of why we end up with a lot of talk, and not a lot of action on the ground, definitely needs looked at, because if we're ever to break this cycle of talk, don't act syndrome, then we need to look at possible reasons why were doing this!
1. Laziness: Or as the Bible calls it 'slothfulness'. This condition is very much warned about and is epidemic to our society today.
The word in Proverbs chapter 24:30 gives a vivid description of the frightening results of laziness!
'So I went by the garden of the lazy man and behold it was all overgrown with weeds and thorns and the wall was broken down around it!’
The worrying state of this garden was not the result of some enemy that had come charging in or the effects of some natural disaster that had overtaken it such as a hurricane, flood or fire but just the lack of action of the owner for a long period of time! Now that's scary!
Never mind the saying that you are your own worst enemy, but you can be cutting your own blessing off by simply doing NOTHING!
Slothfulness it says also in Prov "casts one into a deep sleep!”. So that when your wakened to what's going on, suddenly there is this great big mess to deal with and unfortunately it takes the OPPOSITE of LAZINESS to deal with it! A lazy attitude is classed by God as similar to someone who lacks understanding.
God give us an understanding heart that we can respond to your Spirit guiding our lives towards a life of purpose and momentum for your promises!
2.procrastination
prə(ʊ)ˌkrastɪˈneɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
1 the action of delaying or postponing something."your first tip is to avoid procrastination"
2 synonyms:
3 dithering, delaying tactics, dilatoriness, stalling, temporising, hesitation
So the next problem in turning our words into very definite Action, is by defeating the 'delaying or putting off of the evil day, syndrome. '
As people, we can be very slow to do what we should be doing. We can if we're not very careful, put delaying tactics into practice even with God!
We need to give a very definite response to the word of God when he speaks! It should be one of faith with a big old “YES LORD” as our reply.
The story of Gideon is quite funny in one sense. As you watch a very contained and inadequate feeling man, dodge and wiggle his way through the stages of not believing God had called him, to being fearful to go and do what God asked of him, to the point of ultimate revelation where the word of God just connected powerfully in his heart and he procrastinated no longer!
It's all about getting Gods word to really connect in our hearts by his Spirit. It's only then that we become motivated and on fire to do what we should be doing!
Let's not allow our ultimate success to be short circuited by our present problems, but press on in faith to believe, obey and do what Gods telling us to do!!
When we finally get up and do, then we may find that all our fears and laziness and procrastination were just a big waste of time that kept us back from enjoying the awesome promise of God for our lives. So let's speak with a voice that is much louder than mere words, and get up and begin to DO!!!