Most people know of Rosa Parks as the black woman who refused to go to the back of the bus, and thus ignited the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, a boycott that became a key victory in the civil rights movement. While park's decision appears to be a spur of the moment act, it was anything but that.

         Parks had spent the previous 12 years helping lead the local NAACP chapter.  The summer before, she had attended a 10-day training session in Tennessee at a labor and civil rights organizing school.  For some time, she had been studying other bus boycotts, and she already had been arrested in one, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, two years earlier.

         For some people, staying prepared is a one time “getting-ready-session” where you get everything you need and just wait for the appropriate moment to spring into action.  But in reality, staying prepared is a process of engagement over and over again until the moment of ‘kairos’ (KY-ros) — the time when both time and opportunity collide in a split second of communion and the world shifts on its proverbial axis.  Such will be the occasion at the coming of our Christ.  It’s at that time those who have stayed ready will be invited to enter the wedding of the Lamb and feast at his heavenly banquet.  It’s prepared for those who have stayed ready.

• How important is staying ready to receive the Lamb to you and why?
• What measures are you taking to ensure that you are staying ready?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, grant that throughout my life I have adequately prepared and have stayed ready enough to be invited into Your wedding banquet.

         The one thing we can all agree on is that ‘time is relative’.  What one person considers a long time, depending on one’s experiences, that same period of time could be understood to be relatively short and vice versa.  The late Black comedian, Dick Gregory, once said, “I spent three days in Georgia one night.”  And if time is relative to us, where God is concerned, time is only important to God as it relates to God’s greater agenda — to allow everyone to come to repentance who will come.  The problem lies in our ability or inability to wait out God’s clock in order for us to receive the blessings God has in store for us.  We can patiently wait God out, or we can get ourselves in position to be adequately prepared to meet our God who comes like a thief at our door.  However, rather than place ourselves in a position to be adequately prepared, it’s better to stay prepared!  If we stay prepared, then we’ll be ready whenever the decision is made for Christ to return.  And yes, the waiting may be difficult.  However, staying prepared is better than being in a position where we’re getting prepared and could be found to be unprepared.

• What is our human preoccupation with time and how does that preoccupation make it so difficult for us to wait?
• What about the waiting makes it difficult to stay prepared?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Lord, let me not become so weary in my waiting that I’m caught unprepared for Your coming. Help me to stay prepared even though you come like a thief in the night.

         There was a movie released several years ago titled, “Walk on the Wild Side”.  The chorus to the song, which was nominated for an Academy Award stated,

            “One day of praying and six nights of fun;

            the odds of you going to heaven — six to one.”

Those words probably more accurately reflect what it means to be prepared and to stay prepared.  There are — without a doubt — people who play in their faith throughout the week.  They do all of the “Christian things”.  They go to church on Sunday, occasionally do some act of mercy.  If pushed, they may even defend their faith position, but usually only to justify satisfying their worldly pleasures than an act of Christian stewardship.  They sing songs of faith, and pray, but their commitment to Christ is virtually non‑existent.  And the truth is, it’s difficult to tell them from others who never go to church, worship God within the community of faith, live their lives Sunday through Saturday being generous to whomever they choose, yet lacking the effort to love everyone.

         There is more to staying ready than having done king and benevolent things.  Those who have a relationship with Christ where they do what they wish — believers and non-believers alike — place themselves in the unwelcome position of being unprepared for Christ’s coming.  They think it’s important for them to know Christ without realizing that it’s more important for Christ to know you.  Christ will only claim to know us if we’ve remained faithful in our waiting, staying ready to receive him when he comes.  It doesn’t matter what we’ve done in Christ’s name if we haven’t stayed ready and are recognizable by him when he comes.

• How can you be assured by your faith that you know Christ and Christ knows you?
• What are you doing in your faith life to stay ready as evidence that you and Christ know one another?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful Christ, let me be led by faith and works as evidence that you know me by our relationship and that I’m staying ready for your return.