now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.
II Corinthians 6:2 b

            “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  We’ve all heard it.  It usually is an epitaph on failure.  “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.”  That was a caption under one High School senior’s picture.  I must confess.  That senior was me.  Very early those who knew me recognized this tendency to procrastinate.  I’ve dealt with it all my life.  So when I talk about how spiritually dangerous it is I’m talking to myself.  From a purely rational standpoint when one arrives at age, as the Bible puts it, of three score and ten, it doesn’t make much sense to put anything off that needs to be done.
C.S. Lewis said it this way: “Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or happiness to the future.  Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord.”  It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for.  The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.¹
            Soren Kierkegaard, wrote, “Learn to posses your experiences.”
It is possible to live always looking for something that is ahead of us and miss what is before us right now.  We fail to smell the roses.  We pass by needs.  We are blind to what we can do right now.
This is no support for the instant everything society or living with no thought of the future consequences of our actions or inactions.  It is simply a reminder that there are things that can’t be postponed.  There are opportunities that are not repeated.  The present belongs to God as well as the future.  Now is God’s time—to love, to trust, to obey.  Don’t put it off.

^{1 “}Learning in War-time.” Quoted in A Year With C.S. Lewis, 323

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