Those of you that know me well, know that I hate to be late. I hate to even be on time. I am an early person. I used to go crazy getting ready for school, because it seemed like my little brother was always moving slower than a snail, (I love you, Trent) and we usually arrived only five or ten minutes early, which to me is late. When I started college and was responsible only for myself, I was usually 15 to 20 minutes early for every class. Now that I have kids, I am rarely 20 minutes early to anything, but as a family we are still usually at least 10 minutes early.
In 17 days we are moving to Romania. I am packing. I started packing very early in September when we found out that a shipping crate was leaving New Orleans headed to Romania. We were blessed to be able to send some boxes ahead of us to Romania, completely free! We continued packing as we prepared to move out of our house in November. We packed again when we came up to Michigan in January. We are now less than three weeks away from our big move, and I am packing. The process of sorting, packing, weighing, resorting, repacking, and reweighing is not my favorite, but with a goal of 7 suitcases 48 pounds each, the preparation is necessary.
I have no idea how many hours I have invested this year in packing, but it is a lot!
I started thinking about all the time I have spent packing our physical "stuff" in preparation for Romania. Preparation is necessary before a move like this, but how much time am I investing in preparing my heart for this move? I would like to say that I am investing at least the same about of time in preparation of my spiritual "stuff" as I am on my physical "stuff" but sadly I know that is not the case.
As I read my Bible and diligently study God's Word, it becomes alive in me and I become alive. As I read God Word, I find myself longing for pure spiritual milk (1 Peter 2:2), but that longing often does not occur until I actually put aside all the tasks that seem to be urgent and begin to read.
As we complete our preparation phase before our departure, my prayer is that I will daily put on my armor as described in Ephesians 6.
I want the belt of truth tied around my waste with a Gordian Knot that no one could possibly untie. I want the breastplate of righteousness protecting my heart and my life. I want my feet to be ready for whatever task God puts in front of me, and I pray that His peace will accompany me on those tasks so that whatever I do for the Lord, I will do with boldness. I want God to add layer after layer to my shield of faith, because I know that when we serve the Lord obediently, the evil one sends flaming arrows of doubt, confusion, and temptation and attempts to destroy God's people and God's work. My helmet of salvation protects my mind, but only when I wear it.
