Are you ready?

This afternoon, while my wife and my boys were at the local library, I took the "Are You Ready" cross to downtown Ball Ground.

I found a good spot on mainstreet and was not there five minutes or so when a car stopped in the middle of the road and the passenger, who looked to be about a 12 year old girl, whipped a camera out of the window and started taking pictures of the looney guy holding a cross. Only after the cars behind them started showing their displeasure by blowing horns did the roving photographer and her driver move on.

After another thirty or so minutes went by a pickup truck drove slowly by and then parked behind me. The driver, a young man in his late teens or early twenties, jumped out of his truck and walked up to me and asked me what was up with that sign?

I simply told him I was intentially provoking people to think about if they were ready or not for eternity. The young man, dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt (temp was about 48 degrees) looked at me a little funny and said that he thought I was one of those people that thought the world was going to end in 2012. I assured him that I had absolutely no idea when the world was going to end or when Jesus would be returning.

I asked him if he was ready?

Ready for what, he asked.

Ready for eternity, I said!

Yes, he said, I am ready.

How do you know, I asked him.

Because I was saved years and years ago.

You know, I said, almost everyone I meet here in north Georgia will tell me that they were saved when they were a little boy or girl. Sometimes they will tell me that they have been born-again two or three times. But when you ask them how often they read their Bible, pray or go to church, most people will say that they hardly ever rewd the Bible, almost never pray and could not tell you the last time they were in church.

It was at this point the young man said that he was on his way to work and just wanted to see what the question on the cross was all about. Experience told me that I only had a moment more with him so I reached my pocket and dug out an "Are you ready?" tract that has a tombstone on the front of it and handed it to him before he had a chance to get away.

He thanked me for the tract, shook my hand and got back in truck and drove away.

I praise God for that "chance" encounter and pray that He reveals Himself in a mighty way to that young man.

Soli Deo Gloria!!!