The Word of the Day is...

Prepare!

No, that's not my word of the day. It seems to be the Holy Spirit's word to give to me today. And honestly, it scared the crap out of me when I realized what He was saying! (Sorry if my use of c--- is too harsh for you, but that's how I felt!)

The reason it scares me is because the last word he whispered to me was Humility. That was two years ago and our downward mobility has been a long, drawn-out lesson in humilty. I'm thankful He's been teaching me this lesson and I know He's not done yet, but at the same time, it's been a very painful yet rewarding lesson to learn. I'm sure I've probably posted more eloquently about this on a prior post. But back to today, the word is now "Prepare".

And true to form for my ADD attention span, He's had to lead me to this word through more than one venue. In fact, it's been hitting me upside the head for a few days, I just didn't realize it.

I've been reading through more of Leonard Sweet's "Summoned to Lead" and as I posted in "I Can See Clearly Now", Sweet states that "We need to stop worrying about planning and spend more time preparing." I said in that same post, I am a master planner! That may even be an understatement!! But Sweet goes so far as to say, "In our world, planning is worse than a mistake--it's an evil."

What???

Ouch! My toes hurt with that one!

So often, I feel like all we do is plan for something to happen at church, in small groups or in our personal spiritual lives. This is not a judgement on any one group of people but rather, my personal experience in volunteer ministry over the last 20 plus years. And I am just as much a part of the planning as anyone. But Sweet states, "Think of how rapidly your church could be mobilized for ministry if it didn't have to wait for the plans." Hmmm??

He adds that when we plan, the wrong "pilot" is at the helm...one called "self". Also that "self-control may be the ultimate sin" His suggestion for steps to take in the right direction is an obvious one..."Learn to let go."

But Holy Spirit didn't stop with this challenge. On a brief walk a few days ago, I heard a song on my iPod called, "Prepare the Way". The words are straight from John the Baptist in Matthew 3:3a,

"Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight the paths for Him."

This is a quote right out of Isaiah 40:3 also. There's more to the song, but this is the part that keeps playing over and over in my head.

Also, my friend sent me the audio CDs to Beth Moore's "Living Beyond Yourself" Bible study. I just started it this week and as always with a Beth Moore study, I am going to be greatly challenged. Today's passage was examining Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." What does it mean to be "crucified with Christ"?

Honestly, it doesn't sound very appealing. But I know that's where He's calling me to live daily. Reading through Moore's analysis of this passage didn't bring a whole lot of comfort either. I love that she's always honest, pulls no punches and never says that the Christian life is going to be a cakewalk.

As I'm processing all of these things together (Sweet's book, the song that I can't get out of my head, and this new Beth Moore study), that's when the word "Prepare" became so apparent. I know I'm not adequately describing all that went in to this, but as even wordy as I am, it would take days to type out how all of this worked together.

But I felt like Holy Spirit was simply saying..."I'm telling you to prepare. I'm telling you to get ready for what's coming. You don't need to know what it is, just trust Me when I say you're going to want to be prepared."

Does it now make sense why I said it scared the c--- out of me? Prepared for what? Immediately my brain jumps to all sorts of horrible, worst-case scenarios but my amazing Comforter quickly said, "I don't want you to go there. Just be prepared!"

So I'll watch...I'll wait...and in the meantime, I'll prepare.