Procrastination as a Spiritual Practice

Lord God, I don’t know how you built us so that we will forever do one step above the hardest task before us to avoid doing that hardest thing.

But I know that cleaning the house, so I don’t have to write a difficult email…..

Or suddenly figuring out how to pitch another really important idea when I’m supposed to be working on the one in front of me is a uniquely human quirk.

Lord, I am practicing being thankful for the laundry that gets done when I’m avoiding something else.

I am thinking of the number of times I have prayed, desperately or defiantly because I don’t have the energy to do anything else at that moment.

How about you God? Do you save the most horrible tasks for the end? Did you play with judgement for a millennia before it suddenly struck you that you could delay the apocalypse by coming down to earth with/as Jesus’s humanself?

Are you breathing life into this grace period. This moment of waiting between Christ’s ascendancy and the second coming to save every last soul you can? Could procrastinating be in all of humanity’s favor?

My favorite is when I put off a task so long, that it feels too big to ever accomplish, and then I finally must, must do it and it takes mere minutes and does not in fact wound my soul.

Were you holding your breath in heaven, hoping not to have to send your only son, only to come down and realize that you love being human and 33 years is not that long to have after all?

Dear God, procrastinating is not always the best decision, but sometimes I take in the beauty that you designed us to give ourselves time to process things emotionally, that you allowed us to fill that time with more enjoyable or other important things.

And I ponder how, in the creativity of the Holy Spirit of procrastination, we are made in the image of God.

And I offer up to God my procrastinating as a form of thanks and praise.

Thank you God.

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

For More Mundane Prayers: For Surviving Day to Day Life click here

Here are Pandemic Prayers and Resources: Top Posts are “In an Abundance of Caution” “The Lord is My Shepherd: What kind of Sheep are You” and “Masks: A Prayer”