Ready Or Not?

Have you ever played 'hide and seek'?  Ready or not I'm coming.  The hiders hide and the seeker counts to an agreed number before shouting - 'ready or not I'm coming' - and then the hunt is on.  If you have prepared well and hidden well, it will probably take a time to find you, but if not .....

One of the things that concerns me is that we, in the church, take so much time getting ready.  I know that we sometimes refer to the church as 'the bride of Christ', and brides are entitled to take time to get ready.  But I fear we overdo the planning thing.  I think we need to learn to trust God to take us as we are and use us.  After all, as David Heywood reminds us in Reimagining Ministry: "When Jesus left his original disciples to carry on his mission they were far from ready.  One had denied him and all had deserted him at the point of greatest pressure.  But Jesus did not mean to wait until they were fully prepared before commissioning them for ministry.  His plan was that they would continue to learn on the job and his promise of the Holy Spirit was precisely for this purpose."

Just as Jesus made sure they had the resources they needed, so it is for us - but just as they needed to get on with it without waiting for the perfect moment, so do we.