I am choosing tile color while the world appears to be coming apart.
For real.
I am building a house, which means I can spend an embarrassing amount of time thinking about whether a certain shade of white is too white, whether pecan shelves will look right next to black cabinets, and exactly how much old brick a kitchen can handle before it starts looking like a pizza restaurant.
Then I pick up my phone and my heart sinks. War, political unrest, devastating earthquakes, catastrophic mud slides, and human violence dominate my news feeds. And right on cue, nations are shifting alliances.
Now tile color feels ridiculous.
Maybe you have felt the same tension. We are planning vacations, planting gardens, redecorating bedrooms, attending ball games, and deciding what to make for dinner while in the back of our minds sits the question:
Is tile selection (or your current obsession) really what I need to be doing?
For Christians, that question can become even more complicated because Jesus told us this world would not continue as we know it forever. Scripture speaks plainly about trouble, deception, judgement, Christ’s return, and a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And He told us to be prepared.
We may disagree about the timeline of end-time events, but the prepared part of our Christianity isn’t up for debate.
Live Fully, But Not Asleep
Paul wrote to believers in Thessalonica about the day of the Lord and then told them, “let’s not sleep as others do, but let’s be alert and sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:6, NASB).
Jesus gave a similar instruction: “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42).
Alert–Not terrified or obsessed. And not hiding in a bunker calculating dates. We are to be awake enough to be aware of what’s happening around us. Not living in the dreams of our heads and hearts but living in the present with all the present has to throw at us–the good and the hard.
Being awake means living in the present rather than escaping into either our fears or our dreams about the future.
Jesus followed His warning about being ready with a picture of a servant who was still doing his assigned work when the master returned. The faithful servant wasn’t in the bed with the covers pulled over his head or out back in the storm cellar counting canned goods. The servant, a steward, was taking care of the house, the property, the relationships, and the finances the master had entrusted to him (Matthew 24:45–46). He was being a servant day in and out, while watching closely for his master’s return.
Both.
Perhaps living ready or alert has less to do with abandoning ordinary life and more to do with becoming intentional about how we live it.
We can build houses, plant tomatoes, take the trip and celebrate birthdays. We can enjoy the life God has given us.
But we enjoy those things awake to the fact that none of them are permanent.
Maybe Preparing Looks Like a Table
When the world feels uncertain, preparing usually makes us think about what we should store.
Since we lived in a politically unstable country in Africa, my husband and I have kept a bin full of emergency supplies. Our prepping started as security should we be tossed out of the country we lived in and into the Congolese Rain Forrest for survival. With constant political instability and a family of five, we had to be prudent about possibilities. Today, we find it equally prudent to have a bin of supplies ready to throw into the car: A few days’ worth of canned goods and dried beans, flashlight, batteries, soap, towels, a pot for cooking, utensils, and a tarp. We also include medications and a change of clothes along with a list of other things to grab if there’s time: documents, computers, and yeah–the cellphone I’m always looking for. At the time of the fire evacuation while living in Albuquerque, with my heart is racing and mind is in panic mode, that list proved very helpful.
Prudence is not foolish. Scripture certainly gives us examples of people who prepared wisely for what they knew was coming. Joseph stored grain before famine arrived and saved not only Egypt, but also his family and the blood line of Abraham.
But when I consider Jesus’s example of the servant tending the house in the master’s absence, I wonder if preparation is not only about what we have stored?
What if preparation also includes what we have already given away?
Have we spoken truth, extended hope, and shared the gospel?
I believe preparing means building a table people want to sit around.
I mean a real table. Feed people, make coffee, and pull up another chair. But I also mean creating places in our lives where people can come close enough to talk honestly and be heard.
And this can be scary because sometimes we are afraid of what we might hear and how to handle it. But as Paul urged his mentee Timothy to be ready to preach the word in any season (2 Timothy 4:2) and Peter instructs his readers to give an account of their hope with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15), so we should be ready to share our belief in Jesus and the hope He offers this crumbling world.
Ready does not mean having every answer. Ready means knowing where our hope comes from. Maybe preparing is not only about preserving our lives but also about making our lives available.
Our homes do not have to become showrooms for a life we built. Our homes should become places from which the life of Christ goes out.
And just like that, with a shift in perspective, building a table does not feel quite so frivolous.
The Word Has to Go Out
Isaiah records a fascinating mystery concerning God’s Word: “So will My word be which goes out of My mouth; It will not return to Me empty” (Isaiah 55:11).
I love this promise. But recently, I have stopped to consider what “goes out” means.
The Word goes out. After the Lord spoke it and the prophets and scribes wrote it down, someone else speaks it. Then someone teaches it. Or translates it.
Someone tells the story and someone looks across a table and says, “Can I tell you what God has done in my life?”
We love the promise that God’s Word will not return empty, but before there can be a return, there has to be a going out. This responsibility does not belong to pastors, missionaries, Bible translators, or people with ministry titles only.
God is the source and guarantor of His Word; nevertheless, throughout Scripture He chooses mouths, messengers, scribes, parents, teachers, witnesses. The Word is His. The telling has been entrusted to us.
So here’s the thing: everybody has somebody who needs to hear about the love of Christ and the grace of Christ.
Living ready means we stop assuming somebody else will tell them.
Go Ahead and Live
I don’t know what the next decade holds. I don’t know what the next six months hold or exactly where we are on God’s prophetic timeline, but I am becoming increasingly comfortable admitting that.
And, I do know what Jesus told His followers to do while they waited: Stay awake. Be faithful; love God; love people; tell the truth; and do the work He has placed in front of you.
So yes, I am still building the house.
I will probably continue spending too much time thinking about tile. I will choose the shelves and decide where the table goes. I hope people laugh loudly in those rooms. I hope grandchildren learn to cook there, and I hope friends stay long enough for deep conversations.
And I hope the house never becomes the point.
Build the house, but keep the door open.
Enjoy the life God has given you but keep telling people about the Life that does not end.
Perhaps this is what it means to prepare: Faithfulness with what God has placed in front of us now.
Because Jesus never told us to stop living while we waited for Him.
He told us to live ready.
