Everything Arranged

He had arranged everything.

The life insurance, signed. The estate, settled at the notary's — the children would have nothing to fight over. The combination to the safe, passed on. Even his funeral: he had chosen the music, the readings, and declined flowers in favour of a donation. People said he was a man who planned ahead. It was true. All his life, he had anticipated. The markets, the risks, the hard knocks. He slept soundly because he always had a plan.

And here he is, in this room, hooked up to machines that count, in his place, the heartbeats he has left.

Around two in the morning, a care assistant comes in without a sound. She has come to change a bag, check a drip. She is young, tired, one of those people you do not notice, whom you thank with a nod without catching the name. She works in silence. Then, as she folds back the sheet, she asks him — without guile, simply because the night sometimes loosens the tongue:

— And for afterwards, sir. What have you arranged?

He thinks he understands. He smiles faintly. It is all settled, miss. The notary, the children, right down to the ceremony.

She nods. She tidies up. And as she is about to leave, she turns back, and adds gently:

— No. I meant: for you. For what awaits you, you. On the other side.

And there, for the first time in years, the man who had arranged everything has nothing to say.

Nothing at all.

My friend, my sister, hold on to this scene for a moment.

This is not someone else's story. It is the story of a full life, organised, serious — a life like yours, perhaps, like mine. We know how to anticipate everything, except what matters most. We tuck in the future of those we love and leave our own in the dark.

Jesus knew a man like this. A man who had said to himself: rest, eat, be merry, you have goods laid up for many years. And the answer came, without cruelty, like an awakening:

The wisdom of this world knows how to fill a safe. It does not know how to fill an eternity.

The care assistant has gone. She added nothing. But her question stayed in the room — and it stays in this text, because it was not for him alone. It is for you. So let me take it up again, gently, where she left off.

You too will set out one day on a journey from which there is no return. It is not morbid to say so: it is honest. And when everything else is settled, one question alone will remain: what have you prepared for this great passage? Are you ready to meet your God? Do you know Jesus, your Saviour?

Long before that night, a prophet had said it to a sleeping people:

Not as a brandished threat. As a hand held out — before it is two in the morning.

For preparing this passage is not about piling up merits the way one piles up harvests. It is simpler, and more beautiful: it is placing your hand in his, here and now. Letting Christ into the room long before the emergency. Living already turned toward the One who awaits us on the other side — so that the crossing is not a leap into the dark, but a coming home.

The man in the story thought he had time. You — you have today. That is exactly what you need.

And for you — for what awaits you, you — have you arranged anything?

This is not to condemn you. It is to invite you.