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Be Prepared 

Tim jerks awake. The extreme heat and humidity overwhelm him. Where am I? Certainly not in the air-conditioned cabin he and Deborah slept in the last two nights. His eyes adjust to the early morning dawn. I’m not in a cabin, I’m outdoors. I…I’m in a desert. Tim snaps his head to the left and to the right and observes a group of men nearby…all soldiers. The landscape offers no trees, no grass, only a scrawny shrub here and there. A small ridge rises to one side of their campsite.  

A sharp, commanding voice pierces the silence. “All right men!  Wake up! Grab your weapon. The enemy’s moved into position just over the rise to the north. We need to get ready. They may attack any moment.” By the insignia on his sleeve, Tim knows this man is a sergeant. By his bearing, Tim recognizes he’s the man in charge. The sergeant fixes his eyes on Tim. “Private Skylar, where is your ammo belt?” he barks.

Tim then realizes he too is dressed in battle fatigues. He too has a weapon at his side. He quickly stands and responds to the sarge. “I don’t know sir.” Better to submit to the man’s obvious authority than to ask questions.

The sergeant turns to his own backpack, retrieves a brown paper bag, and hands it to Tim. “Here’s your ammo.” Then he speaks to all the men. “Get ready, the enemy is coming.”

Tim picks up his weapon and inspects it. He has no idea what kind of rifle he holds. He sets it down and opens the bag and peers into it. How am I supposed to get these bullets into this rifle?

Sarge calls out, “Get to the ridge now. Approach on your bellies, and don’t show your face until I give the order.” The men run towards the ridge and as they come close, they drop to ground. They low crawl on their elbows and knees toward the top, cradling their weapons in their arms.

Tim follows, but he struggles with his rifle in one hand and the bag of ammo in the other. When he reaches the top, he raises up, looking for the enemy. “Skylar, get down!” Sarge’s warning comes too late. Tim hears the crack of the rifle, followed by the zing of the bullet. It flies by within an inch of his ear. He lunges to the ground, his heart pounding.

The battle erupts. The enemy fires as they attack the patrol. “Fire at will!” Sarge commands. With all the other men in the unit shooting at the enemy, Tim looks at his weapon and the bag of ammo. Determined to contribute to the battle, Tim reaches into the paper bag and grabs a handful of bullets. An enemy combatant is nearly on him. He can see the evil in the man’s eyes. In desperation, assuming the posture of a baseball pitcher, he cocks his arm and throws the bullets at his adversary. … His attacker laughs. He charges at Tim. Tim has enough time to grab his rifle by the barrel. He swings it like a baseball bat. A home run! He knocks the attacker to the ground.

Tim jerks awake. Confused, he looks around. He’s not in the desert. He’s in the cool cabin. Deborah sleeps beside him. He raises up in bed and swings around to get up. As his feet touch the floor, he hears God’s voice with his spiritual ears for the first time in his life. Two words: “Be prepared!”

The words grip Tim’s heart. Without those words, he would assume the dream was only that—another dream. But it seems like God intervened. He put His stamp on that dream, didn’t He? How am I supposed to respond to that, to the dream—to the directive? Be prepared. Prepared for what? Prepared, how?

“Deborah.” Tim reaches over and nudges her shoulder. “Deborah, are you awake?”

“W…What? I guess I am now. What’s up?” She turns to her back rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“I just woke up from a dream. It was crazy.”

“OK…OK, tell me about it.”

Tim rehearses the dream for his wife, trying to not miss any detail. He finishes and waits for her response.

“Wow, that’s something,” she says vaguely, leaving her reaction open to interpretation. “But what does it mean, ‘Be prepared’?”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about. What does it mean? And that’s not all. Remember the Friday night dinner hosted by Pastor John and Kalie a couple weeks ago?”

At this point Deborah sits up in bed. “Of course. That was amazing. Six of us around a large table. Kalie served four delicious courses on fine china.”

“Yes, but before she served any food, Kalie asked us to take the card she placed on our plate before we arrived. She said God gave her a verse for each person, so she assigned each of us a specific place to sit so we would receive our ‘word’ from God.”

“It’s all so mysterious, isn’t it? We’ve only been in this church less than a year and every week, no … every day… a new adventure.” Deborah wraps her arms around her man. “Remember that Sunday night when Kalie propped her Bible on the piano, then she played and sang a song right out of the Psalms. That was so….so inspiring.”

Tim rises from the bed, goes to their suitcase, and selects clothes to wear for the closing service of their weekend conference. “And on that Wednesday night when Pastor John had his Greek New Testament, he read—I mean he translated as he read—straight from the Greek. He is so educated, so well-informed, and yet so humble. I would never have imagined that he had a doctorate if someone else hadn’t mentioned it.”

“Doctor John. Wow. I didn’t know that.” Deborah gets out of bed and goes looking for the toothpaste and toothbrush. “So back to your ‘word’, what did the verse say?”

“It’s that verse from Esther, you know—where her Uncle Mordecai says, ‘Perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this.’”

“Whoa. That’s heavy.”

“Yeah, well. I felt the weight when I read it. But I don’t want to overreact. I mean, I think each of us has a purpose in life, and God wants us to realize that and embrace our destiny in Him. Whether we are prayer warrior, handyman, Sunday School teacher…we all have a part in the Kingdom of Heaven, right?”

“And now this dream.”

By now, Tim and Deborah are dressed and ready to leave the cabin. Tim  embraces Deborah and speaks quietly “I’m going to take the advice I heard once. I’ll take these things, ‘the word’ and ‘the dream,’ and put them on the shelf…the top shelf at the back of the clothes closet. I’ll let God work out the details, while I attempt to follow Him day by day.”

Deborah responds. “Amen. Let’s go to church… No, I should say, let’s go to breakfast and then go to church.”