Prepare to be Kidnapped

I recently took part in a kidnapping.  But hold up and listen to the story before you start calling the police.

It was the big eighteen.  It had become common among the local group of friends to kidnap one another on the persons birthday.  Her best friend told her she was going to do something big for her this year.  Thus she prepared. Dressed, hair, makeup - they could blindfold her and carry her off any moment.  And even if she wasn’t physically ready, she had the mind-set.

But the week of her eighteenth birthday passed with great disappointment- she was never blindfolded, gagged, and tossed into the back of a car to be carried off to an unknown destination.

Fast forwarding!!!

Two weeks later, on a simple Saturday afternoon, three of her friends burst in her room, scaring her out of her shoes(well, okay, she wasn’t wearing shoes).  She was half ready, preparing to go somewhere else with the family.  But instead the three friends/kidnappers forced a black-and-white checkered blindfold over her eyes.  She was kidnapped, in that moment, never to return home.

 

Until midnight that night, but that's besides the point…

 

As I thought about this story today, I was focused on the preparation of our main character, who I’ll add happens to be one of my best friends.  The week of her birthday, or around this time, its been said she was prepared for what might come.  So as I’m thinking about this the thought hit me.  Wow, what an illustration of us as Christians waiting for Christ’s coming!

Are we all ready and made-up during the ‘birthdays’ in our lives?  The birthdays being the times of emotional revelations.  Maybe when a guest speaker comes or we go on a retreat.

Or maybe a birthday of an easy time in your life, where you’re ‘so thankful God’s got His hand in everything’.  Then hard times come and you fall back.  As you blame it on God, you stop preparing yourself everyday.   You stop with your devotions.

I think we hear so often to be prepared for the coming of Jesus.  But like the girl waiting for her kidnapping, preparing each day for the (special?) occasion.  After time passed she wasn’t constantly concerned or maybe thinking about being kidnapped, but this doesn’t mean she stopped preparing for things.

Back in the story, when we broke in and stole her away, she had been getting ready- just not for the main event.

Do we do this?  Do we prepare ourselves, but for something other then the main event, for the coming of the King of Kings?  Do we sit down and do our devotions to seek the heart of our Lord; or so we have scripture to brag about when we’re hanging with the ‘cool Christians’?  Do we do it to get convicted, clean ourselves out, and recollect a passion for Christ; or just for the nice, quiet time it gives us?

Now rein in your roving mind and dive past the surface for a moment.  You probably read all this thinking, “Rapture, rapture!”  That’s fine, nice outlook.  Now narrow your mind, look at this very moment.

I’m not asking if your ready for the rapture, I’m asking if your ready for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Are you, are we, ready for the Lord to take control at any given moment?  Can we prepare ourselves, in our bible reading, in our prayer, in our worship, to the point that we’re so sold out that if He says go, our feet move without thought.  Can we prepare ourselves now, in this moment, for what He wants to do in this very instant?

Can we constantly be prepared to have our comfort zone, our pride, our selfish will, kidnapped from us all for the sake of Jesus’ name?