Preparation

It's spring now. The early March days are bringing with them soft soil and fragrant early daffodils, and as the land prepares to enter the growing season, I am reminded that this is the season of preparation.

This is the season in which we may begin to plant in our greenhouses or dig up the soil. This is the season when we begin dreaming of what crops we want to plant and what the summer months may bring.

As I write this, it is mid-March, and the windows are open at last. We are preparing in so many ways, not just for the garden; but perhaps Moreso for our baby girl to arrive in a few short months over the hottest part of the summer. How can we prepare? There are conversations about what to expect next, what exercise I should be doing, what I should put on the registry, what prenatal classes I do and don't want to take. I am reading up on lactation and early child development. It's all so much a season of preparation.

Perhaps there is a sense in which our entire lives are a season of preparation for the next, the moment when life really gets started when we reach Heaven. How we spend our time now is preparing our hearts for this future reality. Perhaps there are skills we are learning here that will equip us for the future. Perhaps our work in ministry is the groundwork, the planting. The Harvest will be complete when we get to Heaven and see the abundance as we celebrate our Savior together. I'm thankful that we have a lifetime to prepare. After all, growth isn't linear. I look at all the hills and valleys within my life and I certainly see that.

"Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.'" Matthew 9:38

Are you ready to prepare for the Kingdom of Heaven? In this season of preparation as the garden soil is rich and warming, as a few more cold days leave us indoors in expectation, let us look to the "Lord of the harvest" and prepare for what may be around the corner.