{while you are waiting…}

 

The standing army doesn’t disperse when the battle is looming. They don’t stop being soldiers to become something else simply because the battle isn’t here yet. No, they train. The prepare. The battle is often decided before the first shot is fired, strategies are planned and strength and endurance are built up months, even years ahead of time.

While you wait for some of life greatest battles, what are you doing?  Are you spending these valuable moments recklessly? Are you laying out strategies? Are you building up your strength?

The Apostle Paul compares the Christian life to a race, a marathon. If you have ever tried running, you know it isn’t something that is mastered in a day, it takes strenuous planning and training.

You only get one go around at this race. Don’t you want to be in the front with those making a real and lasting difference?

You don’t get there, to the front, by wasting precious time. You get there by dedication, by perseverance, by sticking out from the crowd that hangs back and running with all your strength even if it means running alone.

This, in itself, is an act of worship. Worship is the expression of adoration to God, the feeling of reverence, an all consuming passion that aligns everything in your life.

While you are waiting for your next battle, whether it be a tiny scrimmage such as holding your tongue in a room of gossips or something huge like losing a loved one, ready yourself. Read your Bible, there are your strategies. Listen to sermons,  there are you personal trainers. Exercise, eat healthy foods, strengthen not only your spirit but your body as well. You are part of a fearsome and terrifying army, in the face of warfare. You are not afraid because you stand ready, you are ready to reach out to those who have no hope.

This is how we witness to a lost world. This is how we bring life into dying souls. This is what we are made for, what we fight for.