The recent tsunami that struck the little Samoan Islands had very little warning. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii was able to send out the message, but it was only ten minutes before the first of four walls of water — fifteen to twenty feet high — struck. Ten minutes!
Ten minutes to “settle your affairs” and prepare to leave this life if you can’t escape the raging, crushing wave thundering behind your fleeing body. Many did not quite make it to a place of safety above the water level — and there were four of those devastating waves. One who was caught in the water was a school teacher from New Zealand. Riding in the back of a truck with about twenty school children, they were overtaken by the first wave. The wave “tossed the truck” and it came down on its passengers.
Deep under water, the school teacher thought, Most of the children must have died instantly — is this my time to die, to come home? . . . I’m ready!
To her surprise, she was suddenly “popped” from under the water — alive — and was taken to a hospital.
She was “ready,” ready for whatever came, whether life or death, and that is as it should be. There is no time while racing frantically ahead of a death-dealing surge of water and losing the race!
How dangerous it is to postpone preparation for the end of life and what comes afterward. It will come, you know, and no amount of “putting it off” or saying “tomorrow” will prevent that day from coming.
We have been warned. The Bible tells us that “NOW is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). We have only now and no assurance that we will have another day — another hour — or even another minute! Don’t waste your time! Prepare now, so that if disaster overtakes you, there will be the secure knowledge that you can say, “I am ready!”