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Monday morning. Am I awake yet? I hope so because I’m driving in my car. The route is the usual one that takes us to the middle school. I can drive without much thought, but I prefer to do it with my eyes open.
Passing a church, there is a sign that wants to know if I am prepared to meet God. I am thinking, “Please, not on a Monday,” because no, I am not ready. I am not ready for all kinds of reasons. There is the son who is graduating, the other son who is still growing, and my wife. No, I am not ready, but I am especially not ready on Monday.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if I will ever be prepared. How can you prepare for a god that expects you to be prepared? The very expectation points to the inevitability of a lack of preparedness. What happens when you are unprepared — something bad, no doubt. I can’t get ready to meet a god who expects me to be ready. The capacity to do such is not within me.
A god who expects me to be prepared will easily see the myriad of ways in which I am utterly and completely unprepared. So how will a god who expects preparation respond when confronted with no preparation at all? I can’t imagine that outcome would be pleasant, which causes me to be even less prepared than I was before I saw the sign.
If getting ready to meet God depends upon me, then I am in trouble. What could I possibly do to prepare for a meeting with the Creator of the universe? What am I going to say to the One who made the sun bright, the night dark, the water wet, and the grass green? What indeed?
Does God really expect us to be prepared? I don’t know about being prepared, but I do think more than anything God wants to love us and be loved by us. God, not us, makes that possible. God made preparations for our meeting through His Son, Jesus Christ. Whatever preparations needed to be made were made by Him. Whatever requirements needed to be met were met by Him. If we ever hope to be ready to meet God, it will be because He has made us ready.
The sign said, “Are you prepared to meet God?” I thought to myself, “No, I am not prepared; but I can’t wait for the day.” I am not prepared. I am not ready. But I wish the day were here already. It will be too soon, but not soon enough. More than anything, I know that regardless of my lack of preparation, God is prepared to meet me.
Joy and peace,
Ed
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