Last Breath.

"The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; 

devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous 

are taken away to be spared from evil.  Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; 

they find rest as they lie in death." - Isaiah 57:1-2

"For my own part, I had rather that the Lord Jesus should keep the keys of death 

than that he should lend them to me. It would be too dreadful a privilege to be 
empowered to rob heaven of the perfected merely to give pleasure to imperfect ones 

below. I may say to myself, “Do I feel now that I could die calmly or even triumphantly?” I 

may put the question if I like, but it is hardly a fair one, for I am not yet called to die; 

yet my experience and observation of others lead me to believe that very remarkable grace is often given to believers in their last hours."

I lost the closest male relative that I had left last night. He, however unfortunately, was a confluence between a troubled yet committed individual, one who sought rigor and patriotism with intense zeal, all while increasing in a cynicism that ignominiously increased in his demise. The circumstances of his passing underscore an alarming trend of Resseger family men whose physical bodies toiled exponentially at their end. If I were to contend that my rigorous devotion to exercise were not inextricably linked to this alarming trend, I might be telling the most fallacious tale.

I suppose any question relating to "why" would be incredibly specious at this point. I discovered many years ago that the question diverted from the realities of the earth and the providence over the kingdom that he indwells. The consuming questions that vex us in our thoughts when a beloved is removed from us are a meager assortment of rationalizations and and lies, at least as they rely our own wisdom. Spurgeon relegates such questions as wholly internal, for we are not expertly questioning the wisdom of God and his chosen, rather assessing our mortality in the scope of human existence. Perhaps it is altogether silly to ask where our own death will stand in the view of another, or to that matter proceeding generations, as such a question will prove nothing significant, but is merely useful in the scope of our own experience and observation. For our deaths are indeed preordained, and are under no directives from our conscious self. 

The prayerful musings of Isaiah are interesting in this regard. Isaiah wholly rebukes an apathetic culture surrounding him, pointing to a distressing ambivalence that surmises that many are only disconnected from the frailty and destination of flesh. Those he regards have already acquiesced to death and immutably display their lack confidence in God. Isaiah does, however, do so in the spectrum of prayer, enveloped not as an interrogation of heavenly wisdom, nor a callous callous chide under spiritual pretense.  Such as the message of the covenant conceived upon resurrection, these words were not meant to cripple those entangled with doubt and despair. Rather, this rebuke was meant to promote reformation of spirit. If people die and those surrounding the deceased are unaffiliated, it exposes a calamity in faith and an opportunity for the deceiver to recompose the doubter. 

Still, being privy to our inheritance in the grander design, that we indeed are observing a greater grace, once of remarkable circumstance, as Spurgeon illustrates. Such a grace as often extended, to those who walk uprightly to enter peace. In death, they do not enter pain, rather being spared from evil and finding rest though passing. It will once become the condition of all who believe, and although grief may consume our conscious self, we muse upon the imperfect and incomplete. 

My heart and head are victims of this incomplete, and the weight of my words fleeting. I do, however pray in earnest that the longings of my spirit may reach the ears of heaven. To my dearest Joey, that you may receive eternal passage and find the rest and the grace that lie at the end of man and the beginning of eternity. 

Expectations

"My expectation is from him." — Psalms 62:5

"It is the believer's privilege to use this language. If he is looking for aught from the world, it is a poor "expectation" indeed. But if he looks to God for the supply of his wants, whether in temporal or spiritual blessings, his "expectation" will not be a vain one. Constantly he may draw from the bank of faith, and get his need supplied out of the riches of."

The meanings of the superscriptions of Psalm 62, of many of the psalms are uncertain, and most are probably later additions.The most basic and fundamental element of the psalms is their expression of continual total and exclusive trust in God, contrasting that of man.

Expectations can simultaneously be both a powerful ally an a crippling force. The Psalmist in Psalm 62 extols all of man under underpinnings of expectations of others, in that man lacks the stance to sustain anything of permanency. Why do the expectations of our faith so often just stretch to what we can cope with? So often the expecation of earthy things displaces to earthly things, superseding the frailness of man's strength. We rely heavily on the burdens we place on others, often without the intervention of the divine. We count on it to protect us, edify us, reassure us, and engage us. Yet, for as long as time has allowed, we have felt the consistent disappointment when such expectations remain unmet. The Psalmist reputes the notion of expectation as lacking density or endurance.

"Men are nothing but a mere breath; human beings are unreliable. When they are weighed in the scales, all of them together are lighter than air." -Psalms 62:9

One of the most curious aspects of the weight of expectation that so many humans envelop themselves with, is that in terms of celestial value, such expectations are really rather faint in the eyes of heaven. So much so, the psalmist not only diminishes the worth of such an expectation but also the entirety of man in light of of his own self-image. So often the weight of expectation become so burdensome on mere men that we lose sight of the often insurmountable burdens that are often fixed upon individuals. Further, the entire presumption of human expectation confutes the very nature of the God we serve. Spurgeon denounces such braggadocio, and does so by emphasizing the priveldged nature of even invoking such expectations. 

The expression "promising the world" would have no reference had not God first held the world first, and subsequently, Christ's ressurection and ascension, consummating the promise. The bridge between out expectation of man and our expecting of God cannot remain in conflict, nor can it parallel the other. The nature of the sprit has a transformational impact on our own spirits and wants, in that with the wisdom, peace, and understanding that come with a right sprit elude to patience, forgiveness and mercy. When we so seek Christ for our spiritual supply, we not only receives the riches of his provision, but we rely less on our expectation of others. 

As we grow in faith and understanding, may our expectations no longer be rooted solely in the expectations of others, but rather draw from the bank of faith to supplicate those desires. 

Cry.

"Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit." — Psalms 28:1

"A cry is the natural expression of sorrow, and a suitable utterance when all other modes of appeal fail us; but the cry must be alone directed to the Lord, for to cry to man is to waste our entreaties upon the air. When we consider the readiness of the Lord to hear, and his ability to aid, we shall see good reason for directing all our appeals at once to the God of our salvation. It will be in vain to call to the rocks in the day of judgment, but our Rock attends to our cries."

"And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. (Romans 8:26, 27 NLT)"

A few nights back, I took the time to watch the a composite broadcast of the events of 9/11. Viewing those events, though not surprisingly, quickly regarded me as uncontrollably debilitated in sadness. Though rarely a cryer, the sheer affectation of those moments in our history produces in me an uncompromising despondency that, well, relatively in my life, though more pronounced in the lives of others more directly affected, takes the afflicted to a place of solemnity that tends to produce both vigor and antipathy in those who dwell there.

One particular striking moment, though to my own, was that of Diane Sawyer's reaction as the North Tower fell. As she witnessed the tower collapse to the ground, noticeably on at least three different occasions, she tried to appropriate the correct words to capture the moment, however in the instance of each attempt, the words would overlap each other, become garbled, and finish with barely a whimper. Even a veteran communicator such as Sawyer, who is well versed in communicating significant messages, was utterly crippled under the weight of such a moment. The heaviness of such an affliction had surpassed her own ability to capture the unfolding's of the day. She had reached the end of understanding and broached the beginnings of the devastating.

Our cries so routinely convert to a last resort. Often when our own strength and resolve reach their limit, then, and regrettably only then, do we speak to the savior with the entirety of our hearts affliction. Only when we encounter him, when we intentionally seek him, do we witness the readiness of him to appeal to us and offer aid. But to merely "waste our entreaties upon the air" as Spurgeon so puts it, voids our ability to cry to the spirit as a counselor. Our cries were not meant to be wasted breaths, it was designed as a holy petition, to in which our heart calls louder the spirit than our words are able. When we plead, when we cry, we desire a harmony and healing greater than what the words we produce are able to recognize.  As Isaiah 12 predicts cries and anguish to God, God is first identified a counselor. "I praise you, O Lord, for even though you were angry with me, your anger subsided, and you consoled me." Upon our covenant with the Holy Spirit, we not only plea with the spirit itself, but the spirit pleads those to the Father.

So fear not the cry, for it is nary meant to debilitate. Our hearts desire communion with the father just as readily though our weeping as through our praises.