Musings About Life and Death

The woman drove straight at me. With all my might I veered away, aiming for the field off the road. Alas, time and momentum worked against me. Crash! Head-on impact.  Just half a metre more may have sufficed to avoid the collision but it didn’t go that way.

The GPS reminded me that I was four minutes away from my destination – Four tiny minutes… it even proposed a shorter route ten minutes earlier. A difference of 2 ½ minutes, did I want to take it?  I’d chuckled; 2 ½ minutes wasn’t going to make that much of a difference, but – in the end – it did.

In the scales of life and death, I escaped the fangs of death. So did the other driver and her granddaughter. They walked away unscathed;  I ended up with four broken ribs, a number of contusions and a very sore right side.

Both airbags had deployed. The car totaled. Incredibly, my eyeglasses got thrown about but were in one piece and straight.

What on earth prompted this woman to drive into the  oncoming lane, my lane? She had no recollection of doing so. From my perspective, it seemed as though she hadn’t even seen me. She had forged ahead as if on a mission!

Because I believe in the existence of God and a spirit realm, I don’t measure such events as fatalistic or coincidental. This particular incident strengthens my resolve to live every day with purpose, and with a renewed awareness of how fragile life is, and to therefore make it count.

All of us are here for a purpose. I concluded that mine wasn’t yet completed, and so, here I am.  Since, with others, I’m involved in organizing and facilitating faith courses, to explore the meaning of life and other issues, there is much resistance in the unseen realm. It is not because we cannot see certain things that they don’t exist… We cannot see the wind, except for what it generates, yet we believe in its existence; so it is with this unseen world.

The crux of such events however, is whether or not our spiritual affairs are in order when our time on earth is up. Are we ready to move from this life to the yet unseen one?

At the moment of impact I didn’t experience any fear. I recall throwing myself out of the car in case it should catch fire.  All the while thanking and praising God for preserving my life – again!  Yes, He allowed temporary hurt and material loss to happen but not that my life be touched.

Was I ready to meet God? Yes, but not thanks to my own goodness. I believe in God’s scriptural promise that because Christ carried the burden of my guilt and sins on the cross, He facilitated reconciliation with God. Through His resurrection, Christ conquered the power of evil and death. Based on that knowledge, my assurance of being reunited with an eternal God rests solely on His grace and the promise obtained through Christ.

It’s not a bad idea to ponder whether or not we’re ready, at a moment’s notice,  to meet our Maker. It’s not a bad idea either to consider whether it’s worth exploring the existence of God.