This was a quote from one of our lectures given by Colonel Mike Bell in Colorado for the Signature Leadership Capstone. It's been playing in my head nonstop since mid-March. In one case, being ready for something is great in leadership. And it's a great question to ask, "Am I ready? If not, then I will study and get ready and perhaps my chance will come."
In another case, your level of readiness is hard to measure, and there will always be a part of you that is not ready. That's the part where you learn by doing. Hopefully, you emerge victorious (whether you win or lose is another question.) Do you see how paradoxical this quickly becomes? There's so many factors when you examine readiness.
I think there are many times in life in which you are ready but you don't even know it. And it takes synchronicity in order to wake you up. Synchronicity is a state of harmony or congruence; when our lives just seem to fall together for reasons beyond our control. I love this word, because it describes those moments where you can see evidences of God moving in your life.
So even if you're not ready; you're a lot more ready than you were.
This is a good place to be.
And this is the place where I am.
But I think all this synchronicity is like God saying, "You're ready to move into an area of your life where you don't feel ready at all."
I can't help but confess that I am ignorant of the unknown.
This is the Johari window. I saw it in the book I'm reading, The Ascent of a Leader written by Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and Ken McElrath. See the lower right corner in the quadrant? Those are the things that you don't know that you don't know. See the dotted lines moving into the unknown square? Well, the more you go through life experiences, learn from others, disclose to others, learn from mistakes--the more that dotted line expands. And it moves in tangent with the other areas in the quadrant.
Later on in the book is this quote, "God places people he can trust in to the right places at the right time. He tests and refines them...so that when the right opportunities arise, they are ready for the challenge."
Ready for the challenge. That is the unknown area; the place where God makes you ready to enter a state of unreadiness. The refining fire; the times in which His strength is made perfect in our weakness.
And it's okay to feel unready.
I was challenged last week by the College Group sermon with these scriptures from John 17: 6-11. In this passage, Jesus prays for His disciples. It's an incredible thing to know our Lord is praying for us. It's basically God saying that He believes in us. He is our biggest advocate, wanting nothing but the best for us.
“I have manifested your name to the people whom
you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me,
and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that
you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that
you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I
came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am
praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom
you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and
yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer
in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy
Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that
they may be one, even as we are one."
Even when you feel unready, even when you just don't believe in yourself anymore... God is there and He's ready to open more doors, to pray for us, to arrange events, and to do His will.
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