Preparation

What's the point.

Sometimes I think that preparation is another way of lying to yourself. A way of convincing yourself you are stronger than you really are. You are better. Over it. Safe. Secure.

But the problem with preparation is that it only lasts until the event occurs, until whatever it is you were preparing for happens, and then you find out, in fact, you were not at all prepared. You find out you were only telling yourself that so it didn't hurt, so it didn't loom in the distance like an iceberg waiting to sink the ship on which all your ideas of yourself and the world were sailing with optimism only ignorance can create.

I don't mean to sound too morose. Or despairing.

I guess I mean to sound realistic.

How many of us have made preparations and then watched them fall with a glance, a word, a breath.

Apply it to anything. Life in general. The future. For six years, I 'prepared' myself for a career, and a year and a half afterward I'm still working part time at a restaurant, up to my elbows in dirty dishes.

But it's not just confined to the physical life. You can prepare yourself emotionally for news you know is bound to come, but the REALITY of that event--the black and bloody existence--is what is truly difficult. Before reality, before the thing occurs, we are fighting a shadow. Naturally, we are going to feel prepared. Naturally, we are going to think we can overcome and awake on the other side a stronger person. We are creating the image in our head, we are playing chess with our self, and we win every time. Only a pessimist walks through life with the belief every conflict will be lost, every bad thing will break a heart.

So where does this leave us.

Do we prepare. Do we board up the mental windows and doors before the storm hits, or do we cower in the corner as the sky turns black and the wind grows from a whisper to a howl.

I think you know the answer. I think I know the answer.

We must prepare.

But we must not trust our preparations for salvation. We must dig the moats, raise the drawbridge, boil the oil, but we must realize these are not solutions. They will not keep all the arrows at bay. They will not deter every invader. We must look beyond our own defenses for survival. We must look beyond our ability to analyze, to predict, to decipher, because really, all of these are based simply on our best guess. We don't know what reality awaits. We do not know what follows behind the dark shadow in our mind.

Yet again, this is another part of my life experience where I am directed to God. Honestly, my frame of mind when I started this post was far from positive. My frame of mind was sad, frustrated, disappointed, embarrassed. I was writing blind, bleeding words onto the page, writing my thoughts like a runaway train. They led me here. To the realization that my human preparations are futile without the presence of Someone bigger than myself and bigger than reality.

I honestly do not know how I would approach the pointlessness of the human experience without my relationship to God, without my faith in His sovereignty. I think the hopelessness of my own actions in tragedy's cruel wake would be enough to drive me to severe depression.

I. Need. God.

We all do.

Everything is vain without Him.

So prepare. Build those walls. Guard your hearts. Get everything in order.

But remember preparations are only as good as the one who makes them.

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Psalm 20:7
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

Psalm 9:10
And those who know your name put their trust in you,for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.

Psalm 28:7
The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults,and with my song I give thanks to him.

Psalm 44:6
For not in my bow do I trust,nor can my sword save me.

Psalm 118:8
It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.

Proverbs 28:26
Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool,but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.

Isaiah 26:4
Trust in the LORD forever,for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.

Jeremiah 39:18
For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have put your trust in me, declares the LORD.