And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. Romans 13:11-14
Though businessman Harvey Mackay had no spiritual concepts in mind when writing the book of the same title as this article, the concept carries a lot of spiritual applications. The premise of Mackay’s book is that a person had to be diligent in networking among people in the business world to be prepared for the challenges inherent therein. His focus was on the fact that one cannot wait until a need arises to find the resources to address the need, but one must get out ahead of the need and prepare in advance. This ensures that when a situation arises, the resources are already in place.
We must apply this mindset to our spiritual lives if we are to conquer the temptations that are sure to come. Several passages in the Bible illustrate this point. We will consider a few to etch this concept in our minds. We begin with the prophet Daniel and his response to being taken captive. The program of the Babylonians was to take these exceptional youths from captured nations and indoctrinate them in the customs of the Chaldeans (Daniel 1:3-7). Sharing in the king’s delicacies and embracing their new names would indicate solidarity with the king. How would these young people remain faithful under such difficult circumstances? Daniel “dug his well before he got thirsty” by setting his mind not to partake, and he lived faithfully despite his circumstances and the influences surrounding him (Daniel 1:8).
Fast-forward to the New Testament, and we find the need for such an attitude repeated throughout. Consider the parable of the wise and foolish virgins in Matthew 25:1-13. The distinguishing feature of wisdom versus folly was whether they prepared in advance or not. What about the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12:13-21? He had been so successful in heaping up material goods that he neglected to prepare his soul for eternity. So, while he was busy tearing down his barns to build bigger barns, his life came to an end without any hope in eternity. Or what about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31? The rich man had lived his life for worldly pleasures, but he made no preparations for eternity. When his soul was thirsty, there was no water because he failed to “dig his well before he got thirsty.”
Several other examples could be set forth, but this is sufficient to illustrate the point. We must give serious thought to the reality set forth by Paul in Romans 13:11-14 above. Note the sense of urgency in his language. He said it was “…high time to awake out of sleep...” because “…our salvation is nearer than when we first believed…” and “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” The proper response to this reality is to “…cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light…walk properly, as in the day…put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”
In 2 Corinthians 6:1-2, Paul reiterated the truth that the time to do this is now, not later. We have no guarantees of tomorrow, so we must get to digging our spiritual wells now. Otherwise, we may find ourselves like the rich man in Luke 16, begging for a drop of water that is nowhere to be found. Have we dug our wells? If not, we better hurry because we will be thirsting sooner than we like to think, and our window of opportunity will close sooner than we think as well.