Preparedness

            There is a time for action.  You need to do something.  There is an urgent matter at hand, which needs your immediate attention.  There is a need to remedy the situation, and to do so right now.

            Do you find yourself in such a situation, more often than not?  A better approach is to stop. Take in what needs to be done.  Then weigh the options.  After doing all of that, the next step is to take action.  If you are not careful, you will jump from seeing the need, to taking action.  So often when that is done, a better plan is missed, because a rash decision was made.

            Nelaton was a skilled and highly esteemed French surgeon.  Once he said that if he had only four minutes to perform a life-saving operation, he would take at least one minute to access the best way to do it.  Taking that extra minute to access the operation, yields the best possible procedure to perform.  After that, then he is prepared to perform surgery.

            What is true in the operating room, is also true of your daily living.  Getting ready.  Assessing the situation.  Evaluating what needs to be done, and the best way to do it.  All of this helps you make the very best decision.

            God told Ezekiel to attack Gog.   God wanted Ezekiel to utterly destroy them.  After God tells him what to do, look at God’s command: “Prepare yourself and be ready, you and all your companies that are gathered about you; and be a guard for them” (Ezekiel 38:7, NKJV).  God tells him to first prepare himself, then to prepare the men with him.

            There is definitely a time to take action. And action is needed for results, but to make sure that the best is done, you need to be prepared.  Stop!  Prepare yourself for action!