Perhaps the greatest challenge in life is in getting ourselves to do what we know we need to be doing whether we want to do it or not. In fact, it is critical to acknowledge that in most cases we would rather put some things off to a later date than deal with them right now. We might think that dealing with an issue will be easier down the road but in most cases that is not true. Those who have achieved any success in life have learned to act—to actually do something. How can we learn to do a better job of that? We are all familiar with the saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” or an alternative form of the proverb, “hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works.” In other words, it is more important what we actually do than what we say we are going to do. In the Bible, Jesus taught the following parable. “But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father?” In this parable, we are taught that it is more important what we do than what we say we are going to do.
