Unprepared

 I was walking up the steps into the school for work when I looked down and gasped.  I didn’t have on any shoes!  How had  I gottten dressed for work and come all the way here with out any shoes?!  Unprepared.  I was unprepared.  Thank goodness it was a dream!

In the next dream I was driving home to get my shoes.  I was taking the same old familiar roads, but every time I would get ready to make a turn, I realized there were “One Way” signs.  The roads had changed!  I kept having near wrecks because the once familiar route had completely changed!  The last left turn seemed to be clear until I realized I had turned right onto a railroad track.  Then I saw it.  The oncoming train.  There was no time.  I  turned hard on the wheel of the car and hit the gas to get off the tracks and crashed the vehicle into the woods.  Unprepared.  I was unprepared for the changes.

The order of the dreams is a little fuzzy now…. that same night I also dreamed I was swimming in the lake.  I saw a small snake slither nearby in the water.  I told those around me but everyone insisted it was my imagination.  Suddenly part of the thick body of a giant python surfaced near me and I could see it sliding through the water.  In the dream I knew I was too far out in the water, and I would never make it back in time.  Thankfully, I woke up!  Unprepared.  I was unprepared to escape the big snake even though I had seen the smaller one first.  

In the fourth dream of the night, my husband and I were meeting a couple who did ministry all over the world.  It wasn’t anyone I actually know in real life.  We were having dinner with this ministry couple, and in the dream I was still putting on my makeup right there at the table with them.  Unprepared.  I was unprepared.

I awoke the next morning with the word unprepared rolling around in my mind.  Before my feet hit the ground, I was thinking of the parable Jesus told of the virgins who were waiting for the return of the bride groom.  I will let you read it for yourself…

The Parable of the Ten Virgins

25 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3 The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4 The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5 The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

6 “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

13 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

I shared about this briefly in my last blog.  I had these dreams about two weeks before Abby’s bike accident (you can read about that Here), and I had been praying into preparedness.  I do think there is personal application for me from these dreams.  I also think there is a broader application.  If the year 2020 has been anything, it has been a year none of us were quite prepared for.  I don’t think on New Year’s Eve when we were celebrating the beginning of a new year and decade that ANY of us imagined the enourmous changes our personal lives, work, and ministry/ churches would endure in the coming months.  

But God was not surprised.  And He knows exactly the choices that every person on earth will make in the days ahead of us.  He knows how those choices will impact each one of us.  And He loves and cares about every single one of us.  And while He may not tell us what each day specifically holds, I believe He wants to pour His love into us in such a way that the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit fills us… and we are prepared.  

In my last blog I shared about praying into peace and how when Abby’s accident happened that “shoe of peace” was right there for me to slip my foot into.  Ephesians 6:15 says we are to have our “feet covered in the preparation of the gospel of peace.”  Why our feet?  Our feet take us on the paths God has laid out for us.  Our feet bring us to divine appointments where we can share the gospel.  Our feet allow us to stand.  And God instructs us in this verse to have feet that are prepared!  Prepared how? By the preparation of the gospel of peace.  

What is the gospel of peace?  Ultimately it is that the veil of sin seperating us from intimacy with the God of the universe has been torn in two through the tearing of Jesus body on the cross as he died for our sins and took the penalty we each deserve on himself.  We no longer have to live in fear of punishment or judgement or death.  Jesus made a way for us to come as little children right up into the lap of the Father and receive the continous embrace of His love as we take on the image of His very son.  The bible says when He looks at us He sees Jesus- not our mistakes or sin.

Jesus died for our sins.  He died for our peace.  And Ephesians 6:15 says there is a preparation that belongs to this gospel of peace.  It is part of the abundant life He came to bring.  And we can put it on.  

As the days and weeks slip by and 2020 draws to a close, I feel the Lord is calling His people to get prepared- to cover our feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.  In my dreams that night, I was unprepared in work, routines, ministry, and life.  That pretty much covers it all.  I feel God is speaking to us that He wants us to be prepared in every area of our lives.  Even if change comes again.  To everything we know as familiar.  There is peace available to us.  And we carry a message that is unchanging.  And that message must be our focus.  

Not work, not religion, not routines, not even life itself.  The gospel is the message we carry in the DNA of every cell if we belong to Him.  In 2 Timothy 4:5. Paul says, “BUT YOU keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill your ministy.”

God, prepare us to keep our heads in all situations, to endure hardship, to do the work of an evangelist, and to fulfill our ministry- that destiny that God has called each of us to- those good works that He has prepared in advance for us to do!