3.211 Prepare and Be Ready

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as savory salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

Have we got any sports fans out there? Let's talk about some football mixed with some basketball. A little bit of both coming here as we take a look at one of my favorite coaches of all time to study, Coach John Wooden.

What does he have to do with the Book of Ezra and Nehemiah? Well, I think he has a lot to do with Ezra specifically. Our verse for today is going to come from Ezra chapter 7.

And before we get to the verse, just a note: inside of verse 6, Ezra is labeled as a ready scribe. What does that even mean, a ready scribe? We typically have other scribes and other roles that are described, but what is this concept of a ready scribe?

And then we get further into our verse for today where we learn a little bit more about Ezra and who he is. Our verse for today is Ezra chapter 7 verse 10, and it says this, For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. Now what is this concept of preparing his heart so much so that he becomes labeled as a ready scribe?

The following is a story about a man who was a man of the past. Step up and try out for the Green Bay Packers. And he steps up and he falters and he hesitates because he doesn't know the playbook.

And he thinks because he doesn't know the playbook it's an excuse, that it's a valid excuse to give to the coaches because he just got there like the day before or whatever. And then he loses his opportunity with the Packers. Now, connect that with this idea of preparedness and being ready.

And that took me then down one of my favorite lines from coach John Wooden, who's considered one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time. Won a bunch of national championships with UCLA back in the day. And his phrase is what caught me in this thought here.

He says, "When opportunity comes, it's too late to prepare." The idea that you're seeking for opportunities in your life, rather than seeking for those opportunities, perhaps you should be preparing for those opportunities to come into your life. My friends, I love the example that Ezra gives us here. We don't get a ton of information other than these pieces of his ready scribe and kind of abilities that he has to help organize the building of the temple here in Jerusalem. And yet these two phrases, this ready scribe and his