Time to prepare 

One of my sons serves in the military. Catching up with him following his return from a challenging African deployment, I asked whether he became bored on these assignments as the posting probably involved 98% waiting for something to happen and possibly 2% action.
 
His immediate response was that I had it wrong (again!) Some 99.5% of the team’s time is spent watching, training, and preparing. The remaining 0.5% consists of confusion, frenetic action assessing and responding to threats.

This is so much like life, where we spend much of our time in relatively comfortable routine and predictable tasks with known results requiring little challenge. This means that it is easy for us to fritter away time and opportunities, leaving little energy to prepare for the future by learning, creating happy memories, building strong healthy relationships and giving back to others and society. Such investment gives strength when life’s inevitable challenges suddenly swamp us. It’s so easy to make ourselves vulnerable by mortgaging our future with selfishness, an unhealthy lifestyle or unnecessary expenditure.
 
For all of our activity what will we be remembered for? We are not called to live a defensive lifestyle but one with a generous and outgoing spirit. If I wrote my own obituary, what would I say?
 
The same applies to our community. We have inherited much from earlier generations, including the fruit of their research in science and technology, and the infrastructure of our cities and buildings. What will our legacy be to future generations? - a huge national debt or a stable, fair and prosperous society; a ravaged planet or a process for its healing? As a church community we can make significant investment in our youngsters, and preserve and adapt our buildings and programmes to benefit our neighbours and children, but most of all give them the experience of being loved by God and ourselves and valued for who they are.
 
Prayer - This is another day, Lord; I do not know what is to happen. If I am to stand help me to stand bravely, if I am to be still give me your peace and wisdom so I can prepare to be useful to you and your kingdom.

Photo by Chirayu Trivedi on Unsplash