When one knows of an impending crisis, the prudent thing to do is to prepare. The more serious the crisis, the greater and more elaborate the preparation. But if the crisis is real, this preparation time will not go on forever. There will be a time when it’s done, and the only thing that comes next is the crisis itself.
The time in between the end of preparing and the beginning of a crisis can be really eerie. This huge thing that you’ve been waiting for is finally here, and it’s kind of surreal. It’s akin to the feeling you’d have when you sit in an exam room, just before taking an exam. At this time, there is no more studying, no more preparation, because the preparation time is over. You’ve done what you’ve done, and now there’s only the test, and you hope you will pass.
Imagine that when this big thing comes, it finds you unprepared or underprepared. What are you going to do now? Or ever worse, you’ve done nothing, and didn’t even know this thing is coming until it’s there. You start asking yourself, Have I done enough? Will my preparation last me to the end? I’ve done some preparing, but I could’ve done more too. What you have may or may not be enough, and there’s no way to find out until you’re in the crisis already. You just take a deep breath, and hope you make it through.
I’m thinking of my friends back in NJ at the moment. The hurricane is here, and the time to get food, water, batteries, etc. has long passed. They have waited, and the hurricane has arrived. I’m lucky enough that I got out of NJ just in time last Sunday…
But if I had stayed in NJ, if I didn’t have this conference to go to, I would’ve been that person who was underprepared. Or UNprepared. Like, seriously. I didn’t know that the hurricane was coming until a few days before, and had absolutely no time to go to the store and stock up. I would’ve had limited water and food. I would’ve been like a that person who came into an exam room trembling …
I’m obviously not just talking about the hurricane. There is another test for which I absolutely do not want to be underprepared. And the time to prepare is now.
Romans 13: 11-12, “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.“
