Preparing My Field

           

          It’s a New Year, and like every year, I sit and re-evaluate my goals, plans and ideas for the coming year…..  and attempt to understand what held me back in given areas last year! With pen in hand and paper (or sometimes the computer) in front of me, I analyze the eight to ten categories in which I’d like to excel.  There are areas where I can indeed see progress. Others, well….  Not so much!

            It seems life takes on a spirit of its own, whether it’s a class in college, changing careers, moving to another part of the country, involvement in family life, health issues, or a hundred other things!   Each of these areas can be huge steps and cause us to be busier than we ever planned, and usurp time we’d planned for other areas.

Yet some areas like marriage or having children are enormous decisions, and steps in our lives that can be intimidating, especially if we aren’t ready for it. Of course, not all areas listed here affect me directly in this time in my life, but the premise is the same.  Whatever it is we do, we want to be successful! 

            A line in my favorite all time movie, “Facing The Giants,” “Prepare your field,” stuck me the first time I heard it and has reverberated in my brain ever since.  It’s easy to think of the farmer who readies his field for planting, well before the first seed is placed in the row.  But I wonder how much “ready-ing” we do for other areas of our lives? 

Certainly, many of us go to college, and take all the required courses in our field of interest.  Yet, often, when we graduate we are still at a loss about what to do next.  Even if a job is waiting for us, sometimes we flounder and change directions at least once and sometimes are still left unsatisfied with the direction our lives have taken.  Sometimes we just give up.  This leads us down roads we likely otherwise would not travel.

            We must have a vision if we are going to succeed.  That vision includes “preparing our field.”  When we put God first, pray for His will to become clearly apparent in our lives, we can move forward.  Like the farmer, we have to “till the ground.”  It takes some effort in preparation, whether its spiritual, physical, financial, or personal labor – and sometimes it’s all four!  Further we must plant the seeds, and again, this falls in several categories!  Life doesn’t “just happen.”  We make it happen! 

            When we have done our absolute best and all things we can do are in place, we must challenge ourselves to believe in God for the impossible to happen in our lives.  This is where faith, hope and love grow.

            I encourage (and challenge) you to consider the opportunities before you and further, decide if you are on the road you want to travel.  Is it time for preparing your field---including your area of spirituality? If so, are you ready to take the leap to the next level?