I’ll be honest, I have a bad habit of doing things on the fly. Essay due tonight? Just unload your thoughts onto the paper. No time to practice the worship set before Sunday? Eh, it’ll be fine. (Sorry worship leaders). Over time, I found that having some kind of preparation or plan makes the actual project easier because I already took off some of the workload and figured out what to do.
When I prep, however, I never pray about it. I thought preparing for a project, task, or presentation was a natural, common-sense thing to do that needs no spiritual guidance whatsoever. I used to pray at crunch time, usually “Lord, please don’t let me mess this up!”
All that changed this week. The Pastoral Team has been going through the Lead Well curriculum from Church Renewal together, and I have learned and am still learning so much from it. The thing from this week’s chapter that stood out to me was “Building Trust – Prepare Well”, which reads, “But what about prayer? Yes, prayer is very crucial in leadership, but even the most consistent prayer can be undermined by sloppy preparation. Prayer can be a HUGE part of preparation. Prayer and preparation don’t contradict each other! Both must work hand in hand. Prayer without Holy Spirit infused action, seldom accomplishes much.”
This made me reconsider everything. We are told to “pray without ceasing” in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, not “Pray when you’re in a difficult situation.” Praying and asking God for advice before problems arise and having Him guide our steps makes more sense than just asking Him to give our plans the green light.
There is a peace of mind that happens when I give God control of everything, including the prep, and it’s something I hope we can all have.