ARE YOU READY? Three Steps to Be Sure!

Born into a traditional Catholic family,I had brushed aside much of the teaching that seemed less credidble than the empirical facts coming from science. I was dazzled by evidence that ancient beings apparently came from space, bringing building techniques impossible without equipment even now on the cutting edge, and medical scientists awed me with life-saving devices and techniques that repaired organs and kept people living much longer, maybe indefinitely,like jellyfish.

Space watchers began looking for other planets we could escape to, if ours became unlivable. And that possibility seemed to come closer, with planet-destroying nuclear weapons spreading to countries making war-like gestures, massive volcanoes threatening restlessness with small earthquakes, an occasional large asteroid coming near Earth's orbit, and the sun throwing out flares. Not to mention all the floods, tornadoes, and tsunamis! Life on Earth is dangerous!

But life is also tenacious. Are we really meant to live just this short time and then be destroyed like the trilobites and dinosaurs? Incidentally, the dinsaurs are gone, but not forgotten. Paleontologists recently found proteins on Tyrannosaurus Rex remains that showed a close kinship with chickens! Are we, with all our development, destined to live a little while and then die like frozen birds? This seems to make far less sense than believing in a creative God. There is also too much evidence from all parts of the world and from many cultures to believe we do not live on after our lives on earth are done. It seems more likely that Earth is a teaching place, a laboratory, where we are meant to learn how to love one another while living according to rules of behavior that have been proved to be beneficial. Wherever we look, we see too much nurtured life to believe that it is all myriads and myriads of coincidences. God proves throughout creation that He loves us; the beauty of His creativity delights us at every turn.And occasionally He brings people back from near-death experiences, who, after glimpsing Heaven, never fear death again.

We know, in any case, that we are going to go through death. Every person does. Will it be natural, in old age? Or will it come unexpectedly, in a war or from a wayward asteroid? Trusting in God, I also believe in God's judgment shortly after death, like school kids, getting their report cards. This book is an account of my effort to "get ready" for that moment.Believing that God is the Creator of everyone on Earth, my hope is that each person on this planet will also make a sincere best effort to "get ready" to meet the wonderful Being who is the Creator of us all.