Getting Ready

03.08.10



Is the surf flat today where you live? If so, you can still keep the surf stoke going: grab a paddleboard and stroke away, hit the pool for some laps, go for a workout at the gym, or go “ironman status” and run underwater hugging a boulder! In each and any of these, what are you doing? Getting ready. Getting ready for that day to come when all the conditions of swell, wind, and tide come together. As you get ready, you look forward to that day. When conditions finally get epic, you’ll be able to say “yes.” Yes to the long paddle, yes to clawing over the ledge, yes to those power turns that set you up for position in the pit, or launch you off that ramp.

Once again, the surfing life parallels our spiritual life. God has prepared for us many epic days of knowing him and serving him deeply. Days where eternity is altered, and miracles happen. But there are also many more days, where we simply get ready. We prepare...prepare for the moments ahead. So we lean into our Bible reading, we soak up teaching and worship as we gather in churches, we do the hard work of living clean relationally with others. We overcome addictions, we steward our resources wisely and we gain skill in ways to serve. Why? So that when conditions get epic, when eternity is on the line, when God calls us as his agents of change at our local break or around the world, our answer can always be “Yes!” Yes Lord! Yes, I’m ready! Yes, use me! Yes!

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" --Isaiah 1:8

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. --I Corinthians 1:19-20