Today, I spent most of my day at Panera on campus. We were finishing up a study and discussion on Esau trading his birthright for a meal. We were discussing the great hope and inheritance we have in Christ and how we trade it at times for circumstantial numbing and temporal things when out of the corner of my eye, a woman was hit by a car. In an instant, boom…our total perspective changed. It happens that fast–our lives are changed. Sometimes we are prepared and sometimes we fall apart. The woman was taken away in an ambulance, and the woman who hit her was hysterical. The girls I was with waited with me to see if we could talk to the woman who was the driver, but we were not able to stay until after the police left. I pray for both of these women. I pray that they know Christ or meet him in this painful journey. The whole scene took me back to two years ago when I was riding with Greg and J.C. Neely, and we saw a hit and run accident where a motorcyclist was sent flying through the air after being hit by a truck. It was so scary and very sobering. I attempted to call 911 that day, and I fell completely apart. This time, one of the girls with me dialed 911, and I saw that she was about to fall apart. I grabbed the phone and was able to make the call, and I made sense by remaining calm. I had thought about how to make emergency calls…I was prepared. (I think I needed to prove it to Greg after my prior phone call is one of his favorite stories to tell.) I want to be prepared in all situations. I was actually reminded of a conversation I had with a girl earlier in the day about telling others about Christ. It takes instances like these to remind me of the eternal perspective of our hope in Christ…and the urgency of sharing that hope disregarding the fear of man. When something like this happens, we are jarred into reality. A reminder of 1 Peter 3:15. Oh, that I live with an eternal lens to throw off my selfish love of comfort and love others with the truth being ever mindful that life changes in an instant.
The Art of Coming Alive 