We walk through this world with an undercurrent of despair. I said, undercurrent and I mean undercurrent. This isn't something that is on the surface but rather it lies deep beneath the surface of every single life. Like seaweed tickling your toes as you wade out into the ocean, you can feel it sometimes barely, but other times you jerk your feet away as the slippery tangled vines seemingly alive through the undercurrent try to slither up over the tops of your feet and even dare to flick at your ankles.
This despair that lives for the most part beneath the surface of our lives is the knowledge of death. This inevitability of death is a fearsome spectre which lives within us. We live day in and day out with this vile aspect to our lives and for the most part- we are accepting of its existence. We find it quite easy to live with actually, just so long as it isn't interfering too much with our lives.
As I grew up my first touch with death had to have been my paternal grandfather. I was 19 days shy of 7 years old and I still remember that day vividly. I can picture the house, the living room, the kitchen and all of us in a state of confusion because something terrible had happened. We were taken aside and told by my mother that Grandma called Dad in the middle of the night and said she couldn't wake Grandpa up, so Dad went out there to be with her. Later we were told Grandpa had died. At almost 7, I was old enough to comprehend death to a certain degree but I hadn't recalled any other people I knew in my entire short life who had died. I knew this man I called Grandpa. I knew him and loved him. He was only ever kind to me with a wonderful soft, gentle smile and a ready laugh. I didn't see him on a daily basis, maybe more of a every couple of months situation- they did live quite a distance from us. As a child it seemed like that distance was a couple hours long, but in reality it was only a half an hour, but still, far enough away that it wasn't a trip we'd make all the time. Death.
Death no longer lived beneath the surface for me at almost 7 years old, it had popped up and curled it's seaweed all around me capturing me right up to my chest, squeezing but not pulling me under. My world was rocked violently but not in such a way as I would come to know death's evil grip. And it does have an evil grip! It does!
Death is EVIL. Don't let anyone try to placate you with how normal it is, how it's just a part of this great circle of life we are all a part of. It's NOT just a part, it's a huge, evil part!
This is why death lurks as an undercurrent in our lives, ever there, ever waiting, it's evil showing off its teeth and talons, its victory- even if it's only temporary, it's still a victory of evil's making.
Death is inevitable but part of us knows, we KNOW, that death isn't how things are supposed to be. We know something went terribly wrong somewhere and death was a result. You've seen the horror movies where plagues devastate society- something went wrong in some lab somewhere and the result was the almost extinction of humanity. The sense they try to portray in those movies is something going wrong to cause this to happen. I'm going to scale it way, way back to not an all humans gone at once scenario, but the horror story of the slow extinction. Every hundred years or so the earth has an entirely new group of people living on it except for a few oldtime stragglers holding on to 101 years, 102, and so on, but surely not more than 120 years at any given moment. A hundred years ago today, the majority of people born are now dead. And it will be the same tomorrow and the next day and the next.
This was NOT how humanity was supposed to be.
Living with an undercurrent of death is how it is though, meant to be or not. That undercurrent can be swift or slow, rising or deep but it's there all the time. Part of us becomes immune to the true awfulness of death until we are caught in that undercurrent with our loved one only to survive while they perish. Part of us can die with our loved one, we may have survived the horror of being swept away, but we are never left unscathed.
Death is the undercurrent of our lives, but Eternal Life is the air we can breathe, the hope we leap for, the knowledge there is more beyond the awfulness of death. Eternal life, where death is annihilated completely and never a part of our existence ever again. Eternal life, how we were intended to live. Eternal life all that keeps the darkness of what death tries to be at bay.
When we've lived through the evilness of death's existence in our life brought on by the great deceiver, the evil one, the Devil- we know that touch of evil intimately. We can THANK God through JESUS CHRIST that death will be abolished! There will be a victory over ALL death! Yes, I believe this with my whole heart for as touched by the evil it has been - it has been sealed with the love of my Savior for eternity, He is my everlasting hope. The undercurrent of death will be taken away entirely, wipe from our existence once and for all. There will be no more seaweed tickling our toes and inevitably threatening us with entanglement. That joyous day of Christ's return, that wondrous day of eternal existence with Him bodily, is hope, is love, is evil's complete and utter end promised in a glorious new way.
Come, Lord Jesus, come soon! All through Your amazing love beyond my ability to fully comprehend! Thank you! All glory, praise and honor to You, Lord, now and forever! Amen!!!!!!!
Rom_12:12 Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer
Rom_5:2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Rom 8:24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
Rom 8:25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
1Co 2:1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
1Co 2:2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
1Ti 1:15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
1Ti 1:16 Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.
1Ti 1:17 Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Joh_4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Joh_5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
Joh_6:27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
Joh_6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Joh_6:47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
Joh_12:50 And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
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