day 188: Ready For Anything

There is always someone on a team that when someone says, "Are your ready?", they answer, "I was born ready". They are usually the cowboy and the daring type. It's a misnomer that one could be born ready. Readiness comes from preparation, practice, repetition, and from experience. Especially in our work lives we have too many examples of people thinking they are ready for an assignment or task only to find that they fail or are in over their head because they don't have the experience or preparation to be up for the challenge. While the adage "nothing ventured...nothing gained" is true, I still hate to see the failure that people have because they and someone else thought they were ready for something that they just weren't yet. That type of failure can end up haunting someone throughout their career and can stunt their confidence for years to come. Everyday we are getting prepared and readied for something that we will face in the future and we should be taking into account each day's learning and cataloging it for the future. Many times those readying experiences are not pleasant. They are come from the school of hard-knocks and we learn what not to do next time as much as learn what to do. And because of that we should not let the hard-knocks in life and at work get us down, but instead use them to add to our capability and strength for the future. We use these moments in our lives to strengthen our faith and to be sure that we are placing our trials and problems in the right hands, the hands of God. We see this in the book of James where we are told that we must build our endurance in order to be ready for anything. Without the endurance to withstand the challenges and trials that will be put in front of us, then we will never be fully ready. James 1:2-4 says; "Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith it tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything." Today, you are facing something at work that is a trial and a challenge for you. It may be something that has been lingering for a long time and you know that you need to invite God to work with you today to help you get it straightened out for once and for all. You may not have had the level of faith yet to let Him take it and for you to follow His direction, but today can be that day when that amount of faith is in you. Today can be the day of building the endurance necessary for you to be ready to face anything. He wants to give you that level of endurance. All any of us need to do is let Him and let our faith build in his assurances that all the endurance and strength we will ever need is ours for the taking. Count the blessing today of knowing that God truly wants us to be ready for anything.

Reference: James 1:2-4 (New Living Testament)