We need to be ready...

I saw my neighbor across the street last night.  She had been working in her yard and was cleaning up the twigs and other yard debris  around her house.  As I remembered her pain and sorrow of losing her husband recently, I decided it would be a good time to just pop over and say hi.  We had visited her right after her husband had passed away.  That was the first time I had ever met her.  We took some flowers over and expressed our sorrow for her loss.  Of course at that time she was still in a state of shock.  We had moved into our house a little over a year ago. She was surprised to find out we had been living there that long and did not even know the other family had moved.  I felt bad that we had never walked over and introduced ourselves before this time.  

As I talked to her last night, we began to talk about the hereafter... She was saying to me, "There has to be more than this life.  You don't think we are just gone and that's it when we die... do you?  I want to see my husband again."  I assured her there is more...  

"At first I was angry at God," she said.  "But now I know that we all must go sometime."  I shared with her that God has given us a certain number of days on this earth and none of us know how long that is... but He does.  And I don't care where we are, or what we are doing, when our number of days are up... we will leave this earth.  Knowing her fragile condition, I did not go any further than that.   We talked for a while about gardening and children and the need to have friends in our lives.  "It is not that we are unfriendly," she said.  "It's just that as we get so wrapped up in our own lives that we fail to look across the street."  

"O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise; 

You perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

You are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue, 

You know it completely, O Lord."

"For You created  my inmost being;

You knit me together in my mother's womb.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

Your eyes saw my unformed body."

"All the days ordained for me were written 

in Your book, before one of them came to be."

Psalm 139: 1-4, 13, 15, 16

I believe our days are numbered in more ways than one.  There seems to be an urgency to make good use of our time.  What can we say or do that would influence someone else to want know the Jesus that we know.   We need to be ready...

"But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect..."  1 Peter 3:15

I am praying for many opportunities to share Christ with my neighbor.  We are getting together soon for tea and coffee.  Jesus listened to people's hearts.  We need to be listeners as well.  We also need to pray and seek God's face.  So we can be ready....