Be being prepared!

Do Thou be with me, and prepare me for all the smiles of prosperity, the frowns of adversity, the losses of substance, the death of friends, the days of darkness, the changes of life, and the last great change of all. May I find thy grace sufficient for all my needs.      Anonymous (2010-07-01). Puritan Prayers (Kindle Locations 97-99).  . Kindle Edition.

“Be prepared!”  Not a bad motto at all! 

In this prayer our Puritan friend shows us that we do not have to wait for the need of His graces and mercies to be overwhelming to bring them to Him.  He knows our future for He has numbered our days and nothing in our lives now or in the future can catch Him unaware.  He is here now that there then.

So, as our unknown prayer partner does,  let us pray for the needs yet to be seen, to be prepared for their coming be they pleasant or not.

Notice the writer firsts asks that the Lord prepare them for the, “smiles of prosperity.”    Now that is a rare thing to see, a prayer to be prepared for the good stuff.  I know I just don’t think of that regularly in my prayers and yet it is exactly that which becomes a trap for me.

We have all experienced that decrease in attention to our relationship with Him when things are ok, good and/or great.  We seem to lose that sense – no, that certainty of, our dependence on Him in all things. 

It’s like we get our gas tank filled by Him and then we don’t need to stop by until the tank gets low.  When we “run out” of whatever blessing He gave us we run looking for the blessing He will give.  I know I have to fight that! 

Two things come to my mind.  The first is the Manna in the wilderness and the second is the passage that tells us His blessings are , “new every morning.”  I wonder if we would benefit from seeing His blessings as a “today” kind of thing.

He tells us to pray for our bread, “this day.”  We are told that whatever troubles we are facing they are sufficient for, “today,” as a focus of concern.  Today is the only today we have – “this is the day the Lord has made,” – “let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

So we live and work and pray for today.  But as He is in tomorrow (weird ) He knows and cares for us there.  We can come to Him, trusting Him that there will be a tomorrow and accepting that we will be no less dependent upon Him then than now.  And we should ask Him to prepare us for whatever may come.  We may and should ask Him to strengthen our hearts and minds and our yieldedness to the Holy Spirit.

We naturally ask Him to carry us and prepare us for the hard parts.  

Let’s not forget to ask Him to prepare us for the good parts as well.