Being Prepared

I realized today that I didn't post this week, and that I really didn't have an idea for a new post, but that today was in fact the last day of the week. I knew I had to think of something because I told myself that I would post on here every week in 2014 and so far I have. I can't stop now.

So here I was, racking my brain about what I could possibly talk about. I thought about just posting some verses (which would certainly be beneficial), and then I thought of resurrecting one of my less inspired ideas, and then I came up with the idea that I'm going to share with you now.

Maybe you guessed from the title that I will be very ironically talking about preparedness.

I heard a very insightful sermon recently about the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. After Jesus concludes the story he admonishes his listeners to "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour." (I'm realizing now that I'm probably just going to plagiarize this sermon right now, so just know that these thoughts are not unique to me)

There are lots of things that we cannot anticipate the time of with any real certainty. Both good things and bad things are going to happen to us with virtually no forewarning. But we can't just let life happen to us. We need to turn good things that happen to us into opportunities for personal growth, and bad things into opportunities to rely more fully on God. The only way to ensure that we use our experiences to their maximum benefit is to be prepared to handle them.

We aren't capable of magically preparing ourselves. That makes me sad because I like to think that I control things and that I can fix them and make them happen and really impact situations. Then again I can take comfort in the fact that God can prepare us for life's challenges through his Word. My best planning outside of his word won't help me handle the highs and lows of life effectively.


So really this post is for the unprepared me more than it is for you. I was really discouraged for a large portion of this week because of things I couldn't control that I wanted to control, but instead of relying on God and going to his word for support, or even thinking diligently about the things I knew from his word that would prepare me for these specific scenarios, I just stayed discouraged. So, when it became the end of the week, I was not prepared with tons of spiritual thoughts I had been thinking during the week because I spent most of it not preparing to be prepared, or perhaps suffering the consequences of being prepared. At the very least I did not spend enough time in the Word this week, which is the key to preparedness for life's situations.

I've been much less discouraged the past couple of days (thanks to some very reliable and encouraging friends, and prayer) but I know I can definitely do a better job letting God prepare me for the situations in my life.

He's here for us and his word is here for us. We cannot forget to utilize those resources.