readiness

For 25 years I was an officer in the Army National Guard. During that time, regulations were updated, new MTOEs were issued (those are the organizational documents that authorize soldiers and equipment), uniforms changed. There was one constant, though. From Basic Training on, the mantra of the National Guard was readiness, which I came to understand as a high level of preparedness that would enable effective response to almost any contingency.

I believed wholeheartedly in the concept of readiness. I still do. It seems both pragmatic and responsible to look at life, estimate what it might require of me, and work to prepare myself in advance. The problem is, in civilian life what readiness means is less easily understood.

Paul helped me a little bit this morning with this from 1 Thessalonians 5:8: “But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.”

My takeaway from this verse is to guard my heart and my mind. A breastplate goes over your chest to protect your heart, and a helmet goes on your head to protect your brain. Paul seems to be saying that life is going attack me in those two places, heart and mind, so part of readiness is learning to defend them.

What’s interesting is his idea of protection. For the heart, it’s faith and love; faith in God and love for him and for others. Those things, Paul says, will give me a robust heart that can withstand disappointment, poor treatment and neglect.

For the mind, Paul suggests hope. Hope will give me mental resilience because I’ll be able to understand why I shouldn’t be overwhelmed in the current moment. I’ll stay focused on heaven, so earth won’t seem so important or so intimidating.

Again, Paul returns to faith, hope and love, the three spiritual gifts he describes in the Love Chapter. These three, he notes there, will always persist, so what better tools for readiness?