Can Negative Effects of Procrastination and Anxiety Be Defeated?

While anxiety is helpful at appropriate levels, it can be harmful if allowed to build where it sabotages daily objectives. Anxiety can serve as motivation to study for exams or to complete a task for recognition at work. Anxiety prompts individuals to take seriously the important issues of life.

A negative example is that of a young man who related how he had avoided calling a friend to apologize for comments that had produced hurt feelings as well as an ongoing conflict between them. Embarrassment, combined with shame and guilt, produced the anxiety that fueled his procrastination.

God’s word can defeat the negative effects of procrastination and anxiety. Listen to Philippians 4:6: “Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Procrastination can be defeated by asking God for help and by thanking him for his guidance.  

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Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.

Psalm 55:22 New Living Translation

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 You are invited to listen as I will be the guest on "Vital Issues in the Christian Home" this week on Thursday morning, November 14 from 10:30-11:30 Central Time on KHCB radio at 105.7 FM in the Houston area. To stream it live or for a listing of sister stations in TX, OK, LA, AR, and FL, please go to www.khcb.org.

What We Can't Discard

A complete timeline for Esau doesn’t exist after he traded his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup and when he married two Hittite women at age forty. Judith and Basemath became a source of grief for Isaac and Rebekah, probably reflecting the influence of the women’s cultural and spiritual heritage they brought into the family.

 

The conflict supports the fact that a person’s family of origin and the influence of their values are a powerful force. Esau’s parents were afraid he would discard their values and faith to please his wives. Esau easily gave up his birthright to appease his hunger. Rebekah would do her best to make sure Jacob did not follow his brother’s lead.

    

Desperate parents sometimes take desperate actions. However, this desperation is not a license to sin or to act impulsively, but an invitation to pray for God’s guidance, provision and protection. We’re encouraged to make our requests known to God with praise and thanksgiving so the Lord of all hope can meet our needs.