Leadership
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of action. Delays, doubtings, hesitation, and indecision frequently give
the enemy every advantage. My brother, you need to reform. The tim-
ing of things may tell much in favor of truth. Victories are frequently
lost through delays. There will be crises in this cause. Prompt and
decisive action at the right time will gain glorious triumphs, while
delay and neglect will result in great failures and positive dishonor to
God. Rapid movements at the critical moment often disarm the enemy,
and he is disappointed and vanquished, for he had expected time to lay
plans and work by artifice.
God wants men connected with His work in Battle Creek whose
judgment is at hand, whose minds, when it is necessary, will act like
the lightnings. The greatest promptness is positively necessary in the
hour of peril and danger. Every plan may be well laid to accomplish
certain results, and yet a delay of a very short time may leave things
to assume an entirely different shape, and the great objects which
might have been gained are lost through lack of quick foresight and
prompt dispatch. Much may be done in training the mind to overcome
indolence. There are times when caution and great deliberation are
necessary; rashness would be folly. But even here, much has been lost
by too great hesitancy. Caution, up to a certain point, is required; but
hesitancy and policy on particular occasions have been more disastrous
than would have been a failure through rashness.
My brother, you need to cultivate promptness. Away with your
hesitating manner. You are slow and neglect to seize the work and
accomplish it. You must get out of this narrow manner of labor, for it is
of the wrong order. When unbelief takes hold of your soul, your labor
is of such a hesitating, halting, balancing kind that you accomplish
nothing yourself and hinder others from doing. You have just enough
interest to see difficulties and start doubts, but have not the interest
or courage to overcome the difficulties or dispel the doubts. At such
times you need to surrender to God. You need force of character and
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less stubbornness and set willfulness. This slowness, this sluggishness
of action, is one of the greatest defects in your character and stands in
the way of your usefulness.
Your slowness of decision in connection with the cause and work
of God is sometimes painful. It is not at all necessary. Prompt and
decisive action may accomplish great results. You are generally willing
to work when you feel just like it, ready to do when you can see