Do Not Procrastinate the Day of Your Repentance

Many years ago in general conference, Elder Donald Hallstrom told a story highlighting the negative consequences of procrastination. His oldest child was eleven years old and received an assignment with his sixth-grade class to submit a favorite family recipe that would be used to create a cookbook for the community. He related, “When the teacher announced the project and a deadline of a week from Friday, our son Brett immediately concluded there was plenty of time later to get the job done and dismissed it from his mind. Early the next week, when the teacher reminded the students of the Friday deadline, Brett decided he could easily complete the required task on Thursday night and until then he could occupy himself with other more enjoyable matters.” This procrastination led Brett to forget the assignment altogether, and he showed up at class on the appointed day without a recipe. Elder Hallstrom continued, “Brett’s procrastination had caused him to forget the assignment and be completely unprepared. Flustered, he turned to a fellow student seated nearby and confessed his problem. Trying to be helpful, the classmate said, ‘I brought an extra recipe. If you want, use one of mine.’ Brett quickly grabbed the recipe, wrote his name on it, and turned it in, feeling he had escaped any consequences related to his lack of preparation.” Elder Hallstrom then related that a few weeks later his wife said to him, “There’s something you need to see.” He continued, “She handed me a bound book with a page marked. Glancing at the cover, titled Noelani School’s Favorites—1985, I turned to the identified page and read, ‘Hallstrom Family, Favorite Recipe—Bacardi Rum Cake.’” What was worse, he had just been called as the stake president, and their family was known in their community as members of the Church. Procrastination on the part of his son Brett led to quite unexpected negative consequences!

            The Book of Mormon speaks a few times about the need to not procrastinate spiritually. As Alma taught the people of Ammonihah, he pleaded with them in these words, “And now, my brethren, I wish from the inmost part of my heart, yea, with great anxiety even unto pain, that ye would hearken unto my words, and cast off your sins, and not procrastinate the day of your repentance” (Alma 13:27). For the most part they ignored his call to repentance, and they reaped the consequence soon thereafter when the Lamanites suddenly came upon them and destroyed their city. Though the Lord is merciful, we do not have unlimited chances, and if we procrastinate forever the day will come when we can no longer repent. Samuel the Lamanite highlighted this fact to the Nephites as he described a future day that would come if they chose not to repent soon: “Ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure…. But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head” (Helaman 13:32, 38). His message to us is that we should not procrastinate our salvation—today is the day we should repent and seek the Lord. There is still time for all of us, but there will not be time forever. The “days of our probation” will one day come to an end, and now is the time to prepare for that.

            Amulek spoke about the need for us to act now in spiritual matters when he taught the Zoramites. He said, “And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed. Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world. For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked” (Alma 34:33-35). We do know that there is some opportunity for repentance in the next life—we wouldn’t perform work for the dead in temples otherwise. But scriptures like this warn us that if we have deliberately put it off in mortality what we could have done, we may not have the chance there that we think we will in the life to come. The antidote for procrastination of course is preparation, and as the Lord stated in this dispensation as He discussed the difficulties of the last days, “If ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:30). Procrastination ultimately brings fear—like Elder Hallstrom’s son felt when he was without his assignment the day it was due—and spiritual preparation brings confidence and peace in challenging times.