Category Archives: Keeping the Faith

Be Prepared

This is the story of how I almost contracted pneumonia after a treacherous journey in a torrential rainstorm during the fall semester of 2019.

It was around five o’clock in the evening, and I had only fifteen minutes to race from one side of my university campus to the other side and make it to my history class in time. When I chose my classes that semester, I knew a moment might come when I would regret the back-to-back scheduling of classes on opposite sides of the campus, but I could never predict how or why that might happen.

I was not prepared for the rain. Sure, I had checked my weather app that morning and knew there was a slight chance of rain, but it was only slight, and I didn’t want to carry around an umbrella all day, so I brushed it aside. A foolish decision, really, for the rain was not light, and I had no tool at my disposal to protect me.

It was a cold October evening, if memory serves me correctly, and I had to rush from my English to my history building while carrying my bag full of books and my purse as the rain poured. It soaked my thick, chenille-knit sweater and flattened my curls against my scalp. Of course, I tried to shield my head from the rain by holding my notebook over my head, but then I realized that I couldn’t let my class notes become soaked and, thereby, unreadable, and so I quickly stuffed the notebook back in my bookbag and sloshed forward as the rain beat on. By the time I reached my history building, I was nearly thoroughly wet.

And, of course, my history building was cool and breezy, and so I sat in the front row of my history class on the Spanish Conquest for nearly three hours in the evening in a wet sweater and damp hair.

I could get pneumonia, I thought. I could have a terrible cold. I might freeze to death in this classroom, wearing my adorable but uncomfortably wet chenille-knit sweater. I should have known.

Yes, I should have known to bring my umbrella and perhaps even my rain jacket that day, and when my father picked me up from class that night, he cranked up the heat in his truck for me and wisely informed me I should make sure to bring my umbrella next time. That week, he brought me a poncho to keep on me “just in case.”

Spoiler alert: I did not die, and neither did I contract pneumonia or come down with a cold or even the sniffles and a light cough. But the uncomfortable experience of sitting in a cool room in damp clothes and wet hair for three hours gave me plenty of reason to always be prepared for the next time it might be raining during the walk between my classes. If I had been prepared, I could have saved myself all that discomfort.

But don’t we often ignore our better judgment and find ourselves ill-prepared for life sometimes?

There were times in college when I failed to start my morning with a proper prayer session, and the rest of my day was awful. I was extra irritable and extra stressed and generally in a bad mood, and I remember thinking each time that if only I had prepared myself for the day in prayer, then perhaps I wouldn’t have been so miserable.

Prayer is not only our time to commune with God, but it’s how we prepare for each day and each situation so that we begin each day and situation prayed up and spiritually balanced.

I’ve prayed before every test I’ve taken, paper or assignment I’ve submitted, and important decision I’ve made. If I fail to do so, it is the same for me as failing to give God full control of every situation. Failing to put my life and work in His hands is the same as attempting to keep my life and work under the control of my incapable and ill-equipped hands.

I need Jesus to get through each day and each situation.

I need Him when I’m taking a test.

I need Him when I’m choosing which career decision to make.

I need Him when I’m walking through the literal or metaphorical rainstorm.

If we’re going to be prepared for whatever comes our way in life, we can’t ignore our responsibility to seek Him in prayer first. During prayer, God equips us with the ability and strength we need to get through each day, for He is the only One Who knows what each day will hold.

Prayer is preparation, and our preparation must begin with Jesus.

Setting the Right Goals in 2021

2021 is finally here, and many are already starting on those special resolutions they’ve set for themselves, but before you start on your new resolutions, here’s something you might consider:

Don’t.

Seriously, don’t make any resolutions. Instead, make goals, and instead of making goals that are glorified resolutions, strive to set goals for yourself that are practical and have a real purpose to them.

For example, I once set a goal at the beginning of a new year to exercise to a specific workout video every day. I did it for about a week, and then I began skipping a few days here and there. Those few days turned into an entire week, and before January was over, I’d completely abandoned my new year challenge.

“Well, that’s just you,” you might say.

Maybe that is just me. Maybe I have a deeper passion for delicious food than taking up running marathons, but maybe many of us have the habit of setting goals for ourselves out of flimsy desires that are simply unrealistic.

But I learned some time ago to choose a specific goal for which I had a passion and burden, and I developed a few steps to achieving success in completing said goal.

1. Start small.

Last year, I decided to study the Word more, so rather than commit right away to analyzing Isaiah or Revelations in depth, I chose one of my favorite shorter books—Esther. I knew it would be a book that I could easily commit to studying due to its short length (only 10 chapters), and I chose to read a few verses each day and study those verses only.

2. Set time aside each day.

I made a schedule to read Esther over the course of several weeks and estimated the time I would spend each day reading the verses and then set time aside to study each verse individually, taking notes and using Bible study tools to help me.

At the same time, I’d made a goal to pray more, so I set a realistic time to pray each morning. The set time sometimes changed, depending on the day of the week, but I knew that specifically writing down my goals and the time I would set aside for them would help me achieve them.

3. Gradually increase time allotted each day and effort necessary to complete the goal.

After about a week, I gradually began to increase how much time I spent in prayer. Sometimes, it was by five minutes or by ten minutes or by fifteen minutes, but the more I prayed and focused on prayer, the easier I found it was to increase my prayer time.

4. Approach with firm resolve and understanding—don’t quit.

I didn’t always pray as long as I needed to or study for as long as I could have, but I didn’t give up. Why? Why didn’t I give up the same way I gave up exercising to that new exercise video after a couple of weeks? Because I didn’t set a goal that was only linked to fleeting desires or insecurities. Instead, I made sure to set a goal linked to my own identity and lifestyle. I am a child of God, an Apostolic Pentecostal, and as such, I seek a stronger relationship with God through prayer and studying His Word. I understood the value of the goal I set.

When I failed one day to meet my goal, I began again the next day with a resolve to try harder and do better. By the end of the year, I’d managed to read through and study more of the Word, such as the book of Genesis and themes like comfort. Because I didn’t give up or revert to doing the “same-ole-same-ole,” I was able to reach a breakthrough in my prayers and spend more time in His Presence, getting closer to Him than I’d been before.

Don’t underestimate the importance of writing down your goals and setting schedules.

I’m a visual person, anyway, so putting down my goals and plans on paper helps solidify them in my mind and helps me take those goals seriously.

Your goals don’t have to be big, but your passion does.

If you don’t truly, really, deeply care for achieving your goals deep, deep down, then chances are you’ll give up on them.

After 2020 let down many people, I believe it’s acceptable to set small, realistic goals for 2021—something simple like spending more quality time with loved ones or taking a short vacation (or even staycation) that was cancelled last year due to lockdowns.

2021 will certainly be better than 2020 if we set that as a goal for ourselves and charge forward in faith and with purpose. We have an entire year ahead of us, and we can’t control what happens outside of ourselves. But we can control our determination.

Let’s do this, 2021!