We’ve been refinishing our
wooden deck and lawn furniture. I’ve been doing the preparation and Vickie has
been doing most of the painting. The preparation consists of washing and
sanding, and then more washing and more sanding and sometimes repairs. As with
all painting, the preparation determines the quality of the paint job – paint
will not adhere long to a surface that is poorly prepared.
As I worked on the furniture
last weekend it occurred to me that prepping and painting deck furniture is a
lot like preaching, teaching, and listening to preaching and teaching. A
preacher or teacher who does not carefully prepare need not think that what he
speaks will adhere to his listeners. A listener who does not prepare his heart
and mind need not think that what he hears will remain with him. When we gather
for corporate worship we need not be surprised if we receive little when we
have but little prepared our souls to encounter the Living God.
This coming week I have
meetings with three clients, I have been preparing for those meetings. Tomorrow
morning I plan, the Lord willing, to meet with my wife and other believers for
worship – have I been preparing for that throughout this past week? Tomorrow is
a communion Sunday, have I been
especially preparing for that?
Preparing our hearts cannot
wait until we hear the first prayer, the first music, the first words from the
pulpit – hearts thus prepared are not prepared, that is the equivalent of a
drive-thru church experience – we come, we consume, we quickly forget. The seed
sown in Jesus’ parable was all good seed – it was the soil that differed. What
does the soil of my heart look like?
On the preaching side, one
difference between a message that works with a passage (expository) and a
message that flits around proof-texting, is that the former requires deep spade
work, the text must be submitted to, worked, reworked, and allowed to work.
While the latter is a game of hopscotch that hits a point here and a point
there with generally little depth due to little deep preparation – the paint
flakes off the latter.
Is my heart prepared for
tomorrow as I gather with the saints before God?
