Caterpillars going around n round

Received this in my mailbox courtesy of my pastor. Was a little tickled by the mental image of caterpillars going round n round in circles. However, the article has a lesson for us all I suppose.


The Best Time Of The Day Is Now
by John Mason

Procrastination is a killer.

When you choose to kill time, you begin to kill those gifts and callings, which God has placed within your life. The Living Bible paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 11:4 reads: "If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done."

The first step in overcoming procrastination is to eliminate all excuses and reasons for not taking decisive and immediate action.

Everybody is on the move. They are moving forwards, backwards, or on a treadmill. The mistake most people make is thinking that the main goal of life is to stay busy. Such thinking is a trap. What is important is not whether a person is busy, but whether he is progressing. It is a question of activity versus accomplishment.

A gentleman named John Henry Fabre conducted an experiment with processionary caterpillars. They are so named because of their peculiar habit of blindly following each other no matter how they are lined up or where they are going.

This man took a group of these tiny creatures and did something interesting with them. He placed them in a circle. For 24 hours the caterpillars dutifully followed one another around and around.

Then he did something else. He placed the caterpillars around a saucer full of pine needles (their favorite food). For six days the mindless creatures moved around and around the saucer, literally dying from starvation and exhaustion even though an abundance of choice food was located less than two inches away.

You see, they had confused activity with accomplishment.

We Christians need to be known as those who accomplish great things for God - not those who simply talk about it.

Procrastinators are good at talking versus going. It is true what Mark Twain said: "Noise produces nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as though she has laid an asteroid."

We need to be like apostles. They were never known much for their policies or procedures, their theories or excuses. Instead, they were known for their acts.

Many people say that they are waiting for God; but in most cases God is waiting for them. We need to say with the psalmist, "Lord, my times are in Your hands" (Ps. 31:15).

The price of growth is always less than the cost of stagnation.

As Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Occasionally you may see someone who doesn't do anything, and yet seems to be successful in life. Don't be deceived. The old saying is true: "Even a broken clock is right twice a day." As Christians we are called to make progress - not excuses.

Procrastination is a primary tool of the devil to hold us back and to make us miss God's timing in our lives. The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour (Prov. 21:25). The fact is, the longer we take to act on God's direction, the more unclear it becomes.

Source: An Enemy Called Average by John Mason.
Excerpt permission granted by Insight Publishing


This article provided by CFAITH.com.

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