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''WHAT ARE
YOU
WAITING FOR?''
N
ATALIE
Wooo dead at
43!
It
hardly seems
possible. I remember
her well as the gifted ch ild
sta r of the more tasteful
movies of World War II vin–
tage.
ln duc time the schoolchild in
pigtai ls grew into a successfu l
professional actress. The fame
and riches of this world were
hers . Her marriage to Robert
Wagner was ene of Hollywood 's
most noted.
From a professional standpoint
her roles were consistently good
throughout her near 40-yea r
career. She was one of the very few
to make the transition fr om a
famous child star to full stardom as
an adult actress.
Natalie Wood leaves a bereaved
husband and two young daughters
behind. And all because of an
apparent boating accident in a Cat–
alina lsland harbor, off the coast of
southern California.
The Shock of Sud den Hap penlngs!
It
is difficult to digest a sudden
death- especially if the deceased is
a well-known personality ora loved
one. Death stops our mouths for
justa little while. We are immedi–
ately confronted with the stark fact
that there are limits to human life.
At least temporarily we are forced
to stop and think about the possible
meaning of our existence.
Too soon the shock and the sad-
March 1982
by
John Ross Schroeder
ness wear off and we all too quickly
return to the settled routines of dai–
ly life. We don't allow the mourn–
ing experience to cause us to reftect
more deeply on our own ways of
living.
But think for a moment. l f we
were to allow our minds to follow
up those initial thoughts after such
a shock to the system, we would
soon start to examine our own ways
of living and as a direct conse–
quence take a changed look at our
spiritual priorities.
Biblical revelation is not without
good advice in this regard- if we
would heed the warning. The apos–
tle J ames said: "Come now, you
who say, 'Today or tomorrow we
will go into such and such a town
and spend a year there and trade
and get gain'; whereas
you do not
know about tomorrow.
What is
your life? For you are a mist that
appears for a little time and then
vanishes. lnstead you ought to say
' If the Lord wills, we shall live, and
we shall do this or that' " (Jas.
4:13-15, RSV).
People live their lives as if they
had all the time in the world. We
humans are too often great procras–
tinators. We are going to write that
letter or visit that friend or make a
real effort to quit smoking. But it's
always tomorrow. We never seem
todo it now!
T hat Most lmportant Oeclslon
We not only put off normal obliga–
tions of various courtesies to others,
but we also procrastinate about
the
most important decision
that we
shall take in our enti re lifetimes.
Reconciliation with the Creator
God is the fi rst priority of any
thinking
human being. Ind ividu–
ally, we are only going to be al ive
for a limited period of human his–
tory. We do
not
have forever to
procrastinate. To give routine mat–
ters of living first place in our lives
would be a tragic error of incredi–
ble dimensions.
So how do we go about imple–
ment ing a reconciliation with
God?
First of all we must make an
about-face. The Bible speaks of it
as
repentance
of our sins.
What is sin? The Bible defini–
tion of sin is "the transgression of
the law"
(1
John 3:4). That is,
God's law. Sin is not what you
think is wrong, but what
God
says
is wrong.
Then we are asked to be baptized
in water. Baptism as practiced in
the New Testament is simply a rile
confirming repentance. The two go
hand in hand.
The most noted Christian of the
first century was once confronted
with the urgent need for water bap–
tism. "....
'what are you waiting
for?'
"said Ananias to Saul. "
'Get
up, be baptized and wash your sins
away ..
.'" (Acts
22:16,
NIV).
Now why would one say a thing
like that to Saul of Tarsus? Only
three days before, Saul had been
struck down by Jesus of Nazareth
on his way to Damascus to torture
Christians. He had spent the three
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