Alma 34:33-"Do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end."
This commandment has always been one of the most condemning, worrisome, and thought-provoking for me. I always feel like I am putting off changes that I should make in my actions or character. I don't feel like I am in the minority, especially in my age bracket, when I say that I would consider myself a procrastinator at times. So how does the Lord help us avoid this eternal spiritual procrastination? Having just passed through a momentous milestone in my life with the birth of my first child, I realized how significant these are in helping me avoid procrastination. Although we don't encourage missionaries repenting right before they go on a mission, the alternative is infinitely worse. We don't believe in deathbed repentance but we do believe in bed-rest repentance. In other words, the realization that I was shortly going to be a father, and therefore in charge of teaching my son, helped me make corrections to my life faster than I would have otherwise. The same can be said about when I was about to get married and when I was called to be an Elder's Quorum President. Is there any doubt why the Lord wants us to get married and have children? Nothing could help us improve on our pride, selfishness, temper, virtue, and work ethic. I am grateful that the Lord has given us life-changing events so that we do not sleepwalk through life and procrastinate until "cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed."
