This wrecked a general’s career, it can wreck your life, too …

On November 1, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln promoted Major General George B. McClellan to the position of General-in-Chief over all the Union armies during our nation’s Civil War.

On March 11, 1862, President Lincoln fired McClellan, leaving him only with a command over the Army of the Potomac.

How is it that in just five month’s time McClellan lost his job?

A failure to act.

McClellan had a well-earned reputation for planning and details, along with a solid administrative ability to raise and train an army, but his failure was in not using his army for its purpose — to engage and defeat the enemy.

A failure to act wrecked this general’s career.

A failure to act can wreck your life as well.

We see this penchant for thinking, planning, training, and philosophizing among many Christians today … as well as the failure to do anything with such preparation.

People spend years, even decades in Sunday Schools and small groups and remain biblically illiterate.

They attend evangelism training but fail to share the Gospel with anyone.

They go to seminars, conferences, and participate in webinars ad nauseam but fail to take action and use what they have been equipped with.

In an internationally-acclaimed, award-winning workshop I’m an instructor for, we equip couples with highly effective communication skills. In this process, we not only teach couples to identify their wants for themselves, each other, and the relationship, we also then teach them to identify the specific ACTION it will take to turn those wants into realities. This sounds simplistic, but MOST couples actually think they have accomplished something, that they have resolved issues, just because they reach a place of collaborating and agreeing on wants. Without the insight from their training, they would be left with the same problems as before because they would quickly discover that without taking real and specific action, they would accomplish nothing toward actualizing their wants.

The same is true with living for Christ. A failure to act will mean a failure to know and commune with our living Lord, and/or to be an effective ambassador for Christ.

it is a good thing — a necessary thing! — to study, to learn, to get equipped, to seek knowledge and understanding, but the purpose for all of those things is to ACT! That basic truth is reflected in this story first shared in Today in the Word in 1991 …

One day a young man moved into a cave to study with a wiseman. He hoped to learn everything there was to know. After giving his student a stack of books, the wise man sprinkled itching powder on his student’s hand and left. Every morning the wise man returned to the cave to monitor his student’s progress. “Have you learned everything there is to know yet?” the wise man asked.

And every morning his student said, “No, I haven’t.” Then the wise man would sprinkle itching powder on the student’s hand and leave. This was repeated for months. But one day, as the wise man entered the cave the student took the bag of itching powder and tossed it into the fire.

“Congratulations!” said the wise man. “You’ve graduated. You’ve learned you don’ t have to know everything to do something positive. And you’ve learned how to take control over your life and stop the itching.”

Learn, think, pray, study, plan … do all these things! But remember, you don’t have to know everything to do something positive. As you learn, ACT!

Scotty