Ronald Reagan’s Sign

To live a life of intentionality, you must have an extreme bias toward action—the drive to make your life count. The good thing is that, in my opinion, everyone possesses this desire; it’s just a matter of extracting and activating it. The goal of life is not to arrive at death safely, but sparingly. By sparingly, I mean to live fully and to die empty. To have poured out your life with abandon, having nothing left to give at the end. Life is too short to live with could have, should have, would have regrets. Do-ers hold nothing back. They live out their faith rather than living in fear. This is why the book of Acts is not called the book of Ideas…it’s about people who acted on their faith and did what God called them to do, making no excuses. Author Mark Batterson wrote, “At the end of your life your greatest regrets will not be the things you did but wish you hadn’t, but it will be the things you didn’t do but wish you had.”

Proverbs 20:4 (NIV)

Sluggards do not plow in season; so at harvest time they look but find nothing.

Here are some of the different characteristics that show the difference between Do-ers & Don’t-ers:

Do-ers ask, “How Can It Be Done?”

Don’t-ers ask, “Can It Be Done?”

Ronald Reagan had a sign that simply read, “It Can Be Done.” This sign, sitting on his Oval Office desk, was Reagan’s constant reminder that great and impossible things were within his grasp. Reagan came into office on the platform of three basic tenets: defeating Communism, cutting taxes, and shrinking the size of government. While he will be celebrated for his leadership and strength in these areas, history will also show that one of his greatest achievements was the revitalization of the American spirit and the cultivation of American pride. When I was growing up, I remember a popular expression used in the education system that said, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” This was based on the idea, just like the President’s sign, that there is always a way. Remember, our God is the God of the impossible.