Prepared

"Preach the word; be ready in and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 2 Timothy 4:2. As of late the Lord has been speaking to me about the value of being prepared so we can live from Gods perspective and not from a circumstantial perspective.

From a young age we are taught many subjects in school, from history to math, and I hadn’t really thought about why these were so important until now. Many, if not all students ask themselves at some point, "when will I ever use this?," I'm here to tell you all you learned in your days of schooling was to prepare you for your life ahead, so that you would be prepared in and out of season for the tasks set before you. While we are learning, whether it be a trade or what we see as simple book knowledge, we don't often grasp the value of the information at hand. But think about if a mechanic had no idea what he was doing when he opened the hood of your car. Now anybody with enough time and deductive reasoning can figure out how to solve a problem, but wouldn't you much rather have a skilled person working on your car so it takes the least amount of time? Tradesman go to school and sit as apprentices under skilled men of whatever specific field and sometimes they learn things that just seam pointless, but it prepares them so that in and out of season they will be ready for whatever may come their way. Take the military for example, every soldier is trained in hand to hand combat but rarely will they ever have a chance or even need to use the skills that they've learned in this arena, but when that rare situation occurs those soldiers are very glad they were prepared for such an encounter.

All of this being prepared can be viewed the same in the Kingdom of God. Some of us read the bible very reactively; when an event happens in our life or we are burning about a specific subject we want to read about that and only that. But as Paul tells Timothy, we must be prepared in and out of season. We ought to be reading the word all of the time so when a specific situation arises we don't have to scrounge around searching out where there is something in the word to encourage us in our time of need. A perfect example: in the western world we teach about persecution and that it will come and to know Jesus is with those who are persecuted. In our western society it is not very common for people to be persecuted for their faith, but when this does come those that have been taught about how God views it will not react to the circumstances because they know how God views this and that will lead them into the correct action.

Being prepared is why it is so important to study. You don't want a doctor who skipped one of their classes simply because they didn't see how it was useful to be diagnosing you. It is the same with the Bible, it is not smart to skip over parts or books you think are irrelevant. The word of God is relevant to all of us and it is relevant to every event in our life, so to be prepared is of great value. My challenge to you is to better know the word of God so when troubles and trials arise you are already equipped with God's perspective on your situation.