Getting Ready

The brakes were checked, fluid levels topped off, tire pressure topped up, and all the other systems were checked during the 24 point inspection. It was declared roadworthy, but more importantly, safe. The cholesterol was checked, the heart monitored for any abnormalities, blood pressure taken, and medications added or adjusted. All systems go! Everything is ticking along fine and we should be good for a long while yet. Who says?

Our lives are always on a fine thread, no matter who we are, what age we are, or how healthy we are. It is presumptuous for any person to assume that they will live beyond the next moment. We can even weigh the odds and yet they mean nothing. How many people do you know who died instantly and unexpectedly? I have known many in my lifetime. Why I am I still here? I would not dare to say "Because of God's grace". The expression "There but for the grace of God go I" bothers me a great deal because where was God's grace for the person to whom we are referring? Does not God "allow the rain to fall on the just and the unjust"? We are all susceptible to God's laws, the laws of nature as some would say. God is perfectly capable of suspending those laws at any given time or place, but I suspect he does not do it that often.

We are all born to die. The statistics are that one out of one will die. We do not usually choose how or when, but it is inevitable. So then where is the comfort or where is there an answer to the big question of timing. I believe that if we are ready at all times, it does not matter when or how it happens. The pain and suffering of loss is only for those who are left. We feel a big hole in our lives and it hurts. But this grieving is for ourselves only, if the person we miss was ready for his death. We certainly do not have to grieve for him or her. The troubles of this world are over with and the joys, well the joys that we think a person might have missed out on do not compare for one moment to the joys of being in God's presence.

So next time we come home from the medical checkup and gloat, it would do us a great service to read something like John 3: 16 and take it to heart just in case a rock falls on us when we least expect it.