PRIMED

When I think of primed, I'm reminded of how with those old hand pumps you used to get water, you had to at times prime them first by putting some water in them to get them to work. Which in a way seems rather ironic since you are using up the very water you wanted in order to get more water.

Some things in life seem to need to be primed before they can work correctly. And I think at times even the human heart can be like that. Why is it when we get involved with some form of passion in terms of a past time that we think we can start out totally in love and happy with the past time?

That seems to be the way some people view the process. I see that every year at the gym. When January rolls around we get a whole influx of new members. They have made New Year's resolutions to change their lives. Which is truly commendable.

But the reality is that few, if any, manage to stay active at the gym beyond one or two visits. There is and always will be a big gap between our expectations and experiences. I merely mention the gym for example purposes.

I think though it is the nature of life and behavior in a great many areas of experience. We just aren't too keen on being babes in our experience. We want to have "arrived."

However, there are some things were there is no substitution for time in order to truly prime us for more. And no one understands that better than God.

There are a great many examples in scripture of those God took years to train before they were ready to serve him as intended. The time frame is completely different for different people.

Why we lull ourselves into thinking he would somehow deal with us differently is a question that can't always be answered easily. But it is a fact that have to at times appreciate.

Perhaps the most difficult time for many believers comes much later in one's life of faith. We reach a point we think by virtue of time invested and experience that we are far more knowledgeable and mature than we really are.

Then God will send a test our way and we discover we aren't the pillars of iron in terms of trusting him that we imagined ourselves to be. That can be a hard lesson to accept, but it can teach us so much when we do accept it.

Moving pass the regions of pride where we think we are little gods is difficult and for some impossible. But there are times God will not be "prime" our spirit for a new level of understanding if we haven't embrace what we should have accepted from him in the past. A well that is never truly used properly only ends up being of little value to anyone. Hopefully, we are willing to listen when he seeks to bring us to such a point of priming.