death

so i often think about my deserving death. i really do thank God most mornings that i'm not in hell right then, because i know that's what i deserve, and while i know it's pathetically small, i am really grateful in those moments that He's saved me from my sin and its just punishment.

however, i rarely think about the reality of my death. and i don't really live in light of it, no matter what i would like to say. it's hard to even fathom my own non-life, non-existence at least as i experience it now.

this might just be a guy thing, but talking about death or killing has a certain air to it, when one uses the right kind of language. i've always thought that saying "i will end you" is a particularly profound and epic way of threatening someone with death. i mention this, because i find that to be the best way of describing my predicament. it's hard to imagine one's own end.

i thank God that it's not truly the end, and that by His grace there is life and resurrection after our perishable bodies decay and are done away with. but to really come to grips with my own mortality, that's not something i do often, and something i think i dearly need to. i feel far too invincible, and act like i have all the time in the world.

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 make a profit"— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. what is your life? for you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."