Just Breathe

Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. Genesis 2:7 NLT

Last month I was sidelined by a bout with pneumonia. My chest felt pained and heavy, breathing was labored, and exhaustion came easily. One night I laid in bed praying, “God, you breathed life into all mankind. The air that fills my lungs is from you and for you. Bring healing to restore its strength.” The next morning I woke, thanked God for a brand new day, and began my routine; my prayers from the previous night already fading from my memory. I got in the car to head to work and KLOVE filled the cabin. The first words that played on my commute, “It’s your breath in our lungs,” from Great Are You Lord. The next song was What Are We Waiting For and my mind grabbed on to the words “Can’t speak when we can’t breathe.” Then the last song from my commute was Jeremy Camp’s Dead Man Walking, and what words stayed with me? “Then you rescued me, and now I can breathe.” I couldn’t help but think the Holy Spirit was trying to get a point across. That night I got in bed and began to say my prayers. The songs came back to mind as did my prayers from the previous evening. I heard the Lord in my spirit. “You are right to say the air in your lungs is from me, and you are to use it for me.” The confirmation for me was this: my life, my breath, is for the Lord. The air in my lungs currently ties me to this earthly plane, but there will come a time when I exhale my final breath and my long term existence begins. So I will use the air in my lungs while I can to speak His truth and praise the Lord.

I was interested to see what scripture says about the air we breathe. I found the book of Job references breath often, seventeen times in fact. During his interaction with his friends, Job said, “As long as I live, while I have breath from God, my lips will speak no evil, and my tongue will speak no lies.” (Job 27:3-4 NLT) That verse being remarkably close to the sentiment that I had, I began to think about Job’s lament and my time in the midst of illness. Although a couple weeks fighting pneumonia is nothing compared to Job’s suffering, it got me thinking about the posture of our hearts during our mortal moments. James mentions Job in his book, “We give great honor to those who endure under suffering. For instance, you know about Job, a man of great endurance. You can see how the Lord was kind to him at the end, for the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy.” (James 5:11 NLT)

Processing these thoughts and the breath in our lungs made me think back to my sister-in-law, as her battle with cancer brought her to the end. Holding her hand and speaking into her ear, “I want you to start taking deep breathes. With every breath you breathe in, I want you to breathe in the light and peace of Heaven. With every breath you breathe out, breathe out death and this world until the light is all that fills you and you’re in His arms.” We hold tightly to God’s promises in hard times. In our prayers we get deliverance or we get the strength to endure. It may be harder when we are to persevere, but that is what most builds our faith. Consider this, when we pray for healing and it happens, we too often think Yay! The prayer worked! Thanks God. and go on about our lives. However, when the healing doesn’t come swiftly, or as we want it to, we think Why won’t He heal me? Maybe God doesn’t care about me, or worse, maybe He isn’t there. Our worldview can become rather self-centered in our affliction. Our physical needs can distract us from our spiritual needs. We focus on being healed when God wants us to focus on being holy. Life is so short, and we are not guaranteed tomorrow. The next time you find yourself in a time of hardship try focusing on your breath, and remember it is the Lord’s.

Let everything that breathes sing praises to the LORD! Psalms 150:6 NLT