STAY ALERT, PREPARE, AND REPEAT...

It is one short month before the mission to Honduras, and as I look over the past month, I can only wonder where all of my momentum went.  Life is full of distractions, and those distractions have a way of taking over and stealing your mojo, so to speak.  You blink and you suddenly realize that you have a month which has gone by that you can never get back.  This waywardness can simply be from our own nature to wander, but STAY ALERT, the devil knows us and our nature well, and he is at work too! 

SO STAY ALERT!!

“Stay alert!  Watch out for your great enemy, the devil.  He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.  Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith.  Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.  In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus.  So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on firm foundation.  All power to him forever!  Amen.” – 1 Peter 5 : 8-11 

Prowling he has!  My early success and momentum allowed me to have my guard down.  And he pounced.  I am going through a season in my personal life where there was an expected reaping.  Years of hard work and sacrifice should have led to a proud moment, a moment of reward.  The reality was just new challenges were waiting on the other side.  There was no cheering crowd or end-of-race relief station waiting for me at the end of the race.  For the race continues.  That was just one leg.  And oh, by the way, this next leg… well it mostly uphill!  If the dauntingness of it all doesn’t get you, the distraction will.  And to the prowling roaring lion, a distraction can be just as good!

AND PREPARE!!

So as I sit a month out from the mission, I take a self-assessment and look to step my preparations into high gear.  “Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones.  Learn from their ways and become wise!  Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter.  But you, lazybones, how long will you sleep?  When will you wake up?” – Proverbs 6 : 6-9  So like the worker ant, I just need to set my tasks out before me, whether it is raising the last small amount needed for the trip, organizing materials donated, acquiring prayer partners, or other tasks and just attack each one systematically until they are all checked off. 

THEN REPEAT!!

But, like the personal experiences over this last month, checking off that mission to-do list is not the end.  For there will be no relief station there either, just a new leg of the Journey.  So in similar fashion to the (wash, rinse and repeat) instructions on a shampoo bottle, I will Stay Alert, Prepare, and Repeat!!!

God Bless!!!

Aaron N. Mason