Preparing My Heart

School days are fast approaching. For many they have already begun. As a homeschooling mother, school preparation involves a myriad of details. When all the menus are planned, the lessons are readied, and schedules have been fine tuned, will the preparation really be complete? Will I have prepared my heart? Meals can be prepared and frozen. Folders can be labeled. Books can neatly line the shelves. However, if I have failed to prepare my heart, the most important work remains undone. In order to shepherd the hearts of my children as they learn, my heart must be free from the distractions of emotional clutter, scrubbed of the bondages of sin, and filled with the riches of God's Word.
Just as a homemaker spends time caring for the physical needs of her family, I must spend even more time preparing to meet their inner needs. It is only during intimate moments of worship this can be accomplished. Investing of my time in prayer for the school year ahead is also a necessity. How can the purpose of God for school be revealed if I haven't had any conversations with Him? Such preparation isn't only for the homeschooling mother. This is a need of us all no matter what our position in life. As the beginning of school goes on around us, and the memories of new shoes and bookbags fill our minds, let us also remember to prepare our hearts so that as Philippians 1:9-11 AMP says, "...that your love may abound yet more and more and extend to its fullest development in knowledge and all keen insight [that your love may display itself in greater depth of acquaintance and more comprehensive discernment], so that you may surely learn to sense what is vital, and approve and prize what is excellent and of real value [recognizing the highest and the best, and distinguishing the moral differences], and that you may be untainted and pure and unerring and blameless [so that with hearts sincere and certain and unsullied, you may approach] the day of Christ [not stumbling nor causing others to stumble]. May you abound in and be filled with the fruits of righteousness (of right standing with God and right doing) which come through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One), to the honor and praise of God [that His glory may be both manifested and recognized]."

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