Never Despise Seasons of Preparation

As I was thinking about this post (thoughts about preparation has been rolling around this brain for a little while), I started thinking about every thing that requires preparation. Good grief, y'all, the list is endless.

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 Cake: I thought about baking a cake. It's a messy process, if you're like me. You start with all your ingredients. Then you measure, you separate, you mix, and you bake. However you look at it, a cake is not a cake without prep time. It does not matter how much you want to snap your fingers for a cake to magically appear. Without a little preparation, a cake will not exist.

Marathon: You may be an exercise nut, but you will not hit the pavement marathon style without a little preparing, unless you want to die. Seasoned runners begin a new regiment to make marathon status. It's hours of running, running, and then running some more. Did I mention eating changes and weight lifting?

Career: Student loans are a faithful reminder that I completed this time of preparation. Did we not spend thirteen plus years of our lives preparing for the "real world"? Whether you went to college, trade school, or finished high school, you have spent years preparing for a job. In fact, until you were sixteen, you had no choice in the matter. Prep.

You: Even you required preparation time. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them (Psalm 139:15-16). You were intricately woven in the womb of your mother. For nine months, our bodies were preparing for life, being formed. God could have designed a system that allowed life to form at the blink of an eye. And yet, it takes nine months for a body to form.

Never despise seasons of preparation. They serve a purpose. Let's let God prepare us for the things He's called us to. I think we, myself especially, expect to be able to run full force ahead into the plans of God without first preparing. Maybe that's why most seasons of preparation are not of our own doing. The waiting, the discouragement, the hard serve their purpose to prepare you for your God-give purpose. My challenge to myself is to remain steady and to look for God's hand in each season. Embrace the prep!

But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:31).