When your time comes will you be ready?

When your time comes will you be ready?

‘AWord from the Pastor’ By Clayton Adams

Eddy and I shared several classes together in junior high school. One terrible day in summer he drowned while swimming. As the local towns people stood around the beach area watching the firemen and rescuers drag the lake for his body I thought about how young he was. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right.

Over the next 40 years I learned that not much in life is fair or right – its just life.

Never are the answers sufficient for the questions we have. Why now? Why him?

Was he ready? I hope he was but I don't know.

A few years ago, I was checking on a friend of mine who served our country in the United States Navy during WWII. The city of Earle was his childhood stomping grounds. One day, while visiting with him in his home, he sat in his recliner and I sat on the sofa, I listened to him tell fascinating things he experienced in WW II and about his dear wife who had passed some years earlier and how he missed her terribly. He was dealing with a very quick moving disease and was dying and he knew it. He asked me what did he have to do to make things right with God.

I replied, the Bible states in Romans 10:9-10 that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. I never shall forget his response; “I have asked God to forgive me of everything I did that was wrong and then I asked Him to forgive me of everything I did that was wrong but couldn't remember. I prayed with him knowing he and God had already sealed his future in glory.

When his time came, he was ready.

I was called by friends who had a family member rushed to a hospital after suffering an aneurysm. As the nurses and doctor worked feverishly to save her, I was holding her left hand speaking into her left ear. She was unable to reply verbally but when I asked if she knew me and to squeeze my hand twice to confirm, she did. I had a short time and wanted to make sure she was right because it seemed her time was coming quickly. Speaking encouragement into her ear, I told her what was going on and her family was just outside the doors of the emergency room waiting for her and they loved her. I prayed, we prayed Romans 10:9-10, to confirm what she had accomplished in her heart and spirit I asked her to squeeze my hand again, she did and by that time she was being rushed into a CT scan. The next day when her time came, she was ready.

When your time comes will you be ready? May I be honest and say that the longer I live the more questions I have but fewer answers come my way. In fact the more I read the Bible the more questions I have. The one thing I do know is that each person can be ready for whenever the time comes. The only question I have for you is when your time comes will you be ready?

Clayton Adams is pastor at Earle First Assembly of God.

You can e- mail him at cpalaa@ yahoo. com, or find Earle First Assembly on Facebook.