Three Ways to Prepare for your Day
Life is ever changing, isn’t it?
I now have a new routine every morning and I cannot leave the house before doing it.
Because our house is on the market, I pick up everything on the countertops, store away any paper clutter and vacuum and mop all floors, something I used to do a couple times per week, not every day.
It gets tedious, and requires more time but you never know when there will be a showing. When there is a showing, you don’t know if that person is a potential buyer of the house.
Many days, no one drops by, but I figure the day I don’t go through the regimen is probably the day I’ll get the call from the Central Showing Service. “Jane Doe would like to see your home in one hour.”
Yikes!
You always have to be ready.
I thought, This is a great analogy to our daily walk with Christ.
Every day we leave the house we should be prepared.
- We need to prepare our minds. What faces you today? Are you prepared for the unknown? Through prayer and meditation on his Word, ask God to help you mentally handle the events of the day and to give you Godly counsel on difficult situations. Proverbs 2:6 says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” Does your mind have a tendency to spiral downward? Pray that the Lord helps you live out Philippians 4:8: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
- We need to prepare our hearts. No matter what we do to try to mask what’s really going on in our hearts, God sees the truth. In a conversation with the prophet Jeremiah, God said this about the human heart: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve” (Jeremiah 17:9-10). I want to claim that reward in Heaven, don’t you? So every day I prepare my heart by praying Psalm 51:10 over my life: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Ask God to soften your heart, to give you a heart for his people and to help you love him more.
- We need to prepare to share Christ with others. Before you go out the door, do you ask God to use you in someone else’s life? Are you open to opportunities to share Christ with an unbeliever? These opportunities may be at the grocery store, the nail salon, the school meeting or at the gym. God is faithful to give you the opening but you have to prepare for it. 1 Peter 3:15 says to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” If someone came up to you with questions about your faith, what would you say? Often times, our personal story is enough but do you know how to put it into words in three minutes? Fifteen? Half an hour? It’s always better to share what Christ has done for us rather than preach at another person. That will just jettison them into the opposite direction. Think through how Jesus has changed your life. As you look through the pages of the New Testament, the apostles often recapped their personal history with Jesus; their call, the miracles they witnessed and how Jesus transformed them. That’s all you have to do as well but you have to be prepared.
So are you ready to face the day? It takes a little extra time but it’s worth it because you really don’t know what’s around the corner. Only God knows the future and when you spend the extra time in the morning with him, he will equip you and prepare you for whatever lies ahead.