The Prepared Church

It's early morning during a city-wide prayer meeting. I am walking. I feel led led to look up Proverbs 6:10.as the team continues to pray.

"A little sleep, a little slumber,

a little folding of the hands to rest—"

It seemed an odd passage to speak into a group gathered for an early morning prayer meeting. In context the passage reads:

6"Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! 7 It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, 8 yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.

Ants do what they're supposed to do, when they're supposed to do it, their survival in winter depends on their hard work and preparation during the summer.

9 How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—

11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber,

and want like an armed man.

Pastor Sunday, one of the leaders in the prayer meeting, is praying out of Job 38. It's the passage where God questions Job in response to Job's questioning of God. Tim Keller makes a great case that the message of Job is to prove that God rules the world by His wisdom. That His perspective takes into consideration thousands of factors that we cannot comprehend. God's wisdom is above our wisdom. He is the only wise God. Job can complain but He cannot know enough to question God's way of doing things. Job's wisdom. His friend's wisdom, is not above God's wisdom. God's power, His control, His ability to make decisions is way above our pay grade.

"Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’? Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind?" Job 38:33-36.

"A little sleep, a little slumber,"

I remember a time when a group slept when they should have been doing something else. I remember when there was sleep instead of preparation. I remember a story about an individual who prayed and was prepared. I remember when one man questioned God, asked for a different way but ultimately surrendered to God's wisdom and persevered in the day of his trial. Those who didn't pray, didn't wrestle, didn't prepare, failed in the time of their testing.

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, f Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.

Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

Is the call to prayer a call to be prepared?

Is this why Jesus alway had an answer for the Pharisees. Was God warning him in prayer about the questions they were going to be bringing. Was the pre-prayer of Jesus the reason he was prepared for every test the Pharisees brought to him. Was his prayer and fasting preparing him for the woman at the well, and the revival that broke out in her village. Is this how Jesus was not led into temptation, but delivered from the evil one.

Is a prayerless church, an unprepared church? Is a church that prays in the current season, a church that is prepared for the next season.

This is what we prayed into that morning. That the church in Chicago would be a pre prayered church.