Preparation

I believe that God prepares us for things in advance through our struggles, our day to day lives, and lessons we learn along the way.

However, only God knows what He is preparing us for, we have no way of knowing what is ahead of us.

And if we think we know, then God proves us wrong. We can not assume we know what God is thinking.

On New Year's Eve, I was alone. DT was working, and Boo was bringing in the new year with friends.

I was in the pit of loneliness and self pity.

A few minutes before midnight, I turned the tv on to watch the ball drop.

On the stroke of midnight, I began crying. Through my tears I watched couples kiss, people were shouting and laughing, and my tears fell harder.

I thought, 'Well maybe someone will call to wish me a Happy New Year.'

But the phone remained silent.

The problem isn't that I was alone on New Year's Eve. It's that I am alone more than I should be.

As I cried that night, I turned to my one source of comfort and solace. I turned to my Father and gave Him the tears of aching loneliness.

And a sense that He understands came over me.

He also laid on my heart that I am being prepared for something.

I haven't a clue what, even though my mind automatically goes to the worst case scenario, I know my thoughts on this are probably not any where close to what God has planned for my life.


Ephesians 2:10
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.


I am God's work in progress, every thing in my life, good and bad, big and small, is preparing me for what's to come. There are lessons in each moment, if we just look for them. Sometimes what we need to learn is hard to see, sometimes because we become so self oriented that we are blinded, sometimes because it's a difficult lesson that we don't want to learn, sometimes just because we aren't quite ready for that lesson, but later when we look back things become clearer.

God doesn't want us to just stand still and wait for life to happen, He wants not only to prepare us, but for us to get ready, to be prepared, to learn, to grow, to strive, to reach. We may make many mistakes along the way, but God even uses our mistakes to teach us.

He doesn't leave us alone, He is constantly prodding us, moving us forward, guiding us to His ways.

I could have done so much to make my night less lonely instead of wallowing in my own self pity.

I could have called or visited someone to ease their loneliness. I could have done something constructive with my time. I could have spent the time in prayer and Bible reading.

I could have turned to God to begin with and asked Him what to do.

This morning I had to go to Wally World for a couple of necessities. Since I had time before I had to pick Boo up from her internship, I took my time and browsed the shelves, nothing really catching my eye at first. I was getting ready to check out when I felt compelled to go to the book section. I looked around, nothing really catching my interest until I started walking away. A book caught my eye at the last moment.

World Changers: Live to Serve by Bob Beltz and Walt Kallestad. A book inspired by the life of William Wilberforce and the Amazing Grace movie.

I don't know how many of you have seen this movie, but it was really good, and I enjoyed it tremendously.

I feel God led me to this book for a purpose, there maybe something I need to learn from it's pages.

The next time I feel lonely, I am not going to sit and feel sorry for myself, I am going to do something positive.

This is lesson one for the New Year.

What has God taught you today?