Give Them a Hand!

You know what procrastination is, right? In truth you can see in your mind the picture of a certain person who would have their picture next to the word in the dictionary. Hopefully it’s not your picture. These are the people who put off until tomorrow what should have been done last year.
There are many reasons people put things off. I believe the first major reason is they don’t think it’s urgent. The second is almost as crippling. They don’t get it done because they don’t believe it’s necessary. Then there is the fear of failure. If they don’t try, they won’t be proven to be incompetent. And of course, another reason is, they are just lazy and if they don’t do it, maybe someone else will do it. Things are also put of due to people not knowing it needs to be done in the first place.
But this can change when someone needs a hand. And it starts with you. I was talking to a friend this morning at five a.m. We talked about the great weekend and stuff. You know what stuff is. We even talked about how our true self and the ego separate in our personalities until we recognize it and start the process of bringing them back together. But the conversation changed when he asked for prayer for his friend whose sixty-one-year-old wife was told Friday she doesn’t have long. As important as prayer is, can’t we do something to help her in these last months?
We are in a global village but we are so territorial. We talk about helping our own and others can help the rest. I just read something lately and it goes like this, The problem we have as human beings are not that we lack knowledge about the needs of our world but we lack action. Let’s bring it home. Did you know there are students in our schools that could amount to something if only one adult would give three hours a week for one on one? To help them with their math? Besides that, the teachers could really use an extra set of hands. Did you realize that many seniors’ residents sit alone for months with not one visitor other then the staff to turn them in bed? You have seen the commercials on tv where the person has to decide between lights and rent. Are you aware of the bike in your garage that some child would love to ride this spring but it would take a trip to Walmart for a tube and tire and the ten dollars from your pocket? Years ago my dad threw out two brand-new bikes because then need the rotting tires replaced. Have you heard about breakfast programs that could use some Cherios that are on sale this week at Shoppers for $1.88 a box? It doesn’t take much looking to see needs and know we can meet some if not all of them.
We used to be a society that lived the golden rule. Jesus not only said it but demonstrated, “suffer the little children to come . . . ” He told about the ruler asking people to come to the banquet but only the street people were willing to come. When was the last time you gave with no chance a person could pay you back? What would it take to go to the dollar store and hand the check out person $20 and tell them to use it for people who come short of change, or buy four of the five dollar bags of groceries at Sobeys? We look at all these people who give great amounts of money but what about the lady Jesus noticed giving all she had to someone who had greater needs?
Let me end with the words of Steve Goodier who said it better then me, “When all is said and done . . . more will have been said than done. But like the Chinese proverb teaches, ‘The
best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.’
What are you trying to plant? The second best time to do it is now.”
Something to think about.
Rob