I’ll Do It Tomorrow

And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. Acts 22:16

In my drug addiction, I just always planned to quit using – tomorrow. Every bottle I got and every pill I took was supposed to be the last one. I’d tell myself that I’d be done when my current bottle ran out – and I meant it – but as soon as it was gone, I began looking for the next one, telling myself that would be the end. I truly intended to stop eventually, but it was far easier to simply remain in my mess than to do what it took to get out.

A lot of us have found ourselves perpetually stuck in that same place of planning but doing nothing. We know we need to commit to a radical transformation. We know we need to take our faith seriously, following Christ. We know we need to stop drinking, lose weight, be honest, get help with our anger, or begin loving and giving to those around us. We know we need to do these things and we plan to – tomorrow. Today though, it’s just far simpler to continue living how we’ve been living. Good or bad, our way of life becomes comfortable and any significant disruption to it is profoundly uncomfortable.

Sometimes, it takes an outside voice to spur us into action. That’s what got Paul going in today’s passage. In the story, Paul was blinded by the light of Jesus until he met Ananias who healed him and told him that it was now his life purpose to tell others of Christ. Paul must have sat there for a few seconds too long, because Ananias told him to get moving. And now why do you wait?

For me, in my addiction, that outside voice came in the form of painful consequences. It took misery and loss to force me out of my apathy and inaction. This is frequently the case for many of us. The overweight diabetic often doesn’t make lifestyle changes until he’s had that first heart attack. The husband secretly addicted to pornography doesn’t commit to change until he’s discovered by his spouse.

We may wait for the painful kick to get started, or, like Paul, we can listen to the wise words of Ananias. And now why do you wait? The time for abandoning the old life to find the new one isn’t tomorrow. It’s today. Rise. Get up and get going now.