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You are driving down the road, obeying all the speed limit signs, on your own side of the double lines and doing everything right. You're a careful person -- you don't take unnecessary chances. 

You aren't obsessive about it -- it is just that you have obligations and you want to be sure you are around to fulfill them. So you look both ways at every intersection, check your blind spots when changing lanes, and drive a few miles per hour slower rather than take a chance on passing the car ahead. 

You make it through all the traffic hazards and now you are on the open road --not a car in sight. You look all around you one more time, satisfied that all is well . . . 

And BAM! -- a cow lands on the hood of your car! 

That is what happened to Charles and Linda Everson as they headed back to their hotel in Manson, Washington. A six hundred pound yearling cow fell from a cliff above the highway and landed on the hood of their minivan. 

Chelan County fire chief Arnold Baker, said the couple missed being killed by a 'matter of inches' in the accident Sunday on a highway near Manson.

The Eversons, visiting the area from their home in Westland, Michigan, to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, were checked at Lake Chelan Community Hospital as a precaution. 

Everson later said he didn't see the falling cow and didn't know what happened until afterwards. He kept repeating, "I don't believe this. I don't believe this." 

No kidding. 

Life is like that. It is here one second, and gone the next. For the Eversons, life or death was measured out by a 'matter of inches'. It is said that one's entire life and death is already known to God before one draws that first breath at birth. 

Psalms 116:15 tells us that, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." 

Jesus told a parable about a 'certain rich man' who was contemplating building a bigger barn to hold all his possessions. 

"And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much good s laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." (Luke 12:17-19) 

If that doesn't capture the essence of human existence, I don't know what would. We ALL wake up each morning and head off to work with EXACTLY the same plan -- to work hard until we retire and then enjoy our accumulated possessions while we take our ease, eat, drink and be merry in our retirement. 

"But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?" (Luke 12:20)

The lesson here isn't that to be a good Christian you must be poor. The lesson is instead to keep things in perspective. When Jesus called the rich man 'a fool', it wasn't because he didn't deserve the fruits of his labors. It was because he put too much faith in them.

Despite all your carefully-laid plans, and no matter how careful you are, at some point, 'your soul will be required of thee'. 

Instead, Jesus explains, "So is he that layeth up treasures for himself and is not rich toward God." We build up riches toward God by our 'fruits' -- that is, those whom we've led to Christ during our time on this earth. 

In the spiritual sense, it's easy to become like that certain rich man after we get saved. For us, as Christians, we have all the riches heaven has to offer already guaranteed to us. 

Think of it as trust fund that you get when you reach a certain age. It's already yours now. You just can't see it yet. 

Trust fund babies don't have to worry about their future -- they just have to take care of now. That tends to limit their ambition to surviving until the trust fund matures. 

As we progress through our Christian life, we touch certain people by our witness, whether we know it or not, and in some cases, it is our testimony that God uses to bring another lost one into the Kingdom. 

In so doing, we lay up spiritual riches. But each of us knows of a time when we were resting on our accomplishments, too busy with our own concerns, (or satisfied with waiting until our own trust fund matures) to go share the Gospel with that lost person that the Holy Spirit had impressed on us. 

We didn't know that person's soul was about to be required of them, but God did -- that's why He impressed that person on us, but we were too busy then.  

And now that person is too dead for us to do them any good.  

When one's number is up it's up.

Ivanka Perko died in Slovenia in 2006 at age 74. She survived the Nazis. After the Nazis left, the Soviets came. She survived both regimes. She overcame the worst the world could throw at her -- until she was killed by a falling banana. 

Mrs. Perko had been ill for several months with a condition that made her skin delicate and fine. The falling banana scraped her leg and she died a few days later of complications from the injury. 

In the 1980's, there was a fitness guru named Jim Fisk who built a career around his best-selling book, "The Complete Guide to Running." Fixx became a regular on TV talk shows, extolling the cardiovascular virtues of running. 

At age fifty-two while jogging in Vermont, Fisk collapsed and died mid-step of a heart attack. Fisk's soul was required of him at that very moment. 

And when your number isn't up, it isn't. 

Charles and Linda Everson were driving down the road, minding their own business when a six hundred pound cow fell out of the sky and landed on the hood of their car at terminal velocity. 

They both walked away, (although the cow wasn't so lucky).

The next time you're tempted to let a chance to share the Gospel slip by until 'next time' remember Jim Fisk. Or Ivana Perko. Or the Eversons.

Lost or saved, eternity is just a killer banana or one falling cow away from us all. Everthing is this life is measured out in a 'matter of inches'. There may not be a 'next time.'

But there is today.

From the Omega Letter Daily Intelligence Briefing, Volume 74, Issue:7 -- to subscribe to the Omega Letter and receive the OL in your email box, six days per week, plus access to our member's forums and archives, click here

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