crisis of mortality

The sermon that I was listening to had ended and somehow I still found myself awake. Aside from the faint noise of leaves blowing in the wind outside my window, my house was perfectly silent.

In the midst of the quiet was the steady sound of my heartbeat. As my head lay on my arm, I could feel the blood coursing through my arteries, however, not so much through my veins. Heartbeat-arteries full. Pause-arteries not as full. Heartbeat-arteries full. Pause-arteries not as full. Who knew that blood circulation could be so fascinating?

At no other point in my life have I been more aware of my own mortality. I knew that I was not telling my heart to do what it was doing, but whether I liked it or not, it was going to keep going.

It is almost as though God designed us in this manner so that we would immediately humble ourselves and repent at the advent of any prideful thought that says "I sustain myself". Who are you, oh man, whose breath is in his nostrils, (better said: whose heart beats in his chest) to think such a thing?

This is the text that came to mind:

"For you have rejected your people, the house of Jacob, because they are full of things from the east and of fortune-tellers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with the children of foreigners. Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures; their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots. Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made.

So man is humbled, and each one is brought low— do not forgive them!

Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from before the terror of the LORD, and from the splendor of his majesty.

The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. For the LORD of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low; against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up; and against all the oaks of Bashan; against all the lofty mountains, and against all the uplifted hills; against every high tower, and against every fortified wall; against all the ships of Tarshish, and against all the beautiful craft.

And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. And the idols shall utterly pass away. And people shall enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the LORD, and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth.

In that day mankind will cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats, to enter the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs, from before the terror of the LORD, and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth.

Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?"

Isaiah 2:6-22 ESV