Take a deep breath

I rarely think about the 16-20 breaths I take every minute or the 70-90 times my heart beats each minute. Yet if my lungs didn’t breathe and my heart didn’t beat, in less than two minutes, my life would be in jeopardy. Amazingly, the thought of breathing or my heart beating rarely occurs to me.

My breath, which I so easily take for granted, is given by God. In Genesis we are told that the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life... and in Ezekiel 37:5 God says, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.

Our spiritual lives depend on the breath of the Spirit of God. Yet nurturing my faith with deep breaths of His life-sustaining "air" is often not an intentional act on my part. Oh, that I would attend more to my spiritual health care maintenance!

Dr. Árpád Göncz, the President of Hungary following freedom from communism in 1989, told me that political freedom is much like breathing oxygen. We take it for granted until we no longer have access to it. Then, and only then, do we become obsessed with its absence. What a great analogy.

I have to ask myself, am I concerned about the absence of the breath of God?

Would you take some moments with me this week to rejoice, ponder and consciously attend to the life-sustaining functions of our physical and spiritual lives?

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do.
(Words by Edwin Hatch, 1878) 

Sharing the journey with you,