4 And his
father in law, the damsel’s father, retained him; and he abode with him three
days: so they did eat and drink, and lodged there.
5 ¶And it
came to pass on the fourth day, when they arose early in the morning, that he
rose up to depart: and the damsel’s father said unto his son in law, Comfort
thine heart with a morsel of bread, and afterward go your way.
6 And
they sat down, and did eat and drink both of them together: for the damsel’s
father had said unto the man, Be content, I pray thee, and tarry all night, and
let thine heart be merry.
7 And
when the man rose up to depart, his father in law urged him: therefore he
lodged there again.
8 And he
arose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart: and the damsel’s father
said, Comfort thine heart, I pray thee. And they tarried until afternoon, and
they did eat both of them.
9 And
when the man rose up to depart, he, and his concubine, and his servant, his
father in law, the damsel’s father, said unto him, Behold, now the day draweth
toward evening, I pray you tarry all night: behold, the day groweth to an end,
lodge here, that thine heart may be merry; and to morrow get you early on your
way, that thou mayest go home.
10 But
the man would not tarry that night, but he rose up and departed, and came over
against Jebus, which is Jerusalem; and there were with him two asses saddled,
his concubine also was with him. (Judges 19:4-10)
I know at other times I have
read this story and said to myself, “What is that all about? Why do
we even care?” But this story
resonated with me recently and I’ll explain why.
We have a Levite who kept
being persuaded by his father-in-law to procrastinate his departure. Notice how sneaky the father-in-law is
about this. The Levite gets up
early in the morning to leave and the father-in-law tells him, “Oh, you’ve got
to eat first.” So they eat, but that takes so long that when they are done, the
father-in-law tells them, “Oh, you can’t leave now; it’s too late in the
day. Stay over night.”
The father-in-law pulls this
two days in a row before the Levite gets wise and decides to leave anyway, even
if it is in the middle of the day.
The father-in-law keeps
telling the Levite, “Comfort thine heart” (v5) and “Be content” (v6) and “thine
heart may be merry” (v6) and “comfort thine heart” (v8) and “thine heart may be
merry” (v9), but here’s the problem – it is impossible to be comforted, content,
and merry if you know there is something you have to get back to or get done
and you’re being kept from it.
That Levite wouldn’t actually be comforted and merry until he actually
went back home to do what he knew he had to do. The Levite
probably had some responsibilities connected with the tabernacle, yet the
father-in-law may have thought, “Oh, you don’t a farm, so you can make your own
schedule, so why not stay longer?”
The father-in-law may have
thought he was doing the Levite a favor, offering more hospitality, but he was
actually destroying the Levite’s character bit by bit, by deflecting him from
what he decided to do and then trying to comfort him that he could do it
tomorrow, and then again subverting each attempt as it was made.
| http://www.cafepress.com/+procrastinator_wall_clock,91736813 |
Why has this resonated with
me? I have found myself lately in
the position of that Levite, saying to myself, “I am going to get up early and
do this-and-such” and then have found myself tempted to do other things instead
until I have lost the window of opportunity. Then I think, “Well, I can do it tomorrow,” and then I get
deflected the next day as well.
This kind of procrastination destroys my confidence in myself that I can
do what I decided to do and it makes me very unhappy, in spite of my own efforts
to talk myself into being happy and telling myself to relax.
Finding this story has
helped me. It shows me that I’m
not the only one who has had troubles with this. I am very grateful to whoever decided to include that in the
account of Judges. It reinforces
that this is a problem and has to be
fixed. (Sometimes we need these
problems called out for us to recognize how serious they really are.)
I notice that on the fifth
day, even though it was late and the father-in-law was trying to get him to
stay another night, the Levite finally just left anyway. It feels good to just do it,
even if you realize it isn’t the ideal time.
Let’s keep alert for those
voices that are trying to get us to procrastinate our duty. Those voices don’t go away when we
yield; they get stronger and stronger.
Let’s remember that procrastinating won’t make us happy, or content, or
merry, but only agitated and mad at ourselves. It feels satisfying to get things done, even if it isn’t at
an ideal time. Instead of saying, “I’ll
just have to wait until tomorrow,” why not say, “Let’s see what I can still do
to redeem the day.”
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