Surrounded and full, yet nothing to say – His word speaks for me.
Psalm 150:6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
Tag Archives: breathe
His Breath
This week I have been thinking a lot about my breath. I love breathing and taking a full breath of fresh air into my lungs – I think we all do. I have never had a serious lung issue, but I have had moments of anxiety in college and as a young adult when I felt that it wasn’t possible to get a full breath, and they were terrifying. As I listen to the news and watch the hospitals and doctors repeat over and over the desperate need for more ventilators – I am finally realizing that it is our (His) precious breath that is being taken away.
Exactly a year ago today, I wrote a blog titled “Breath of God“. My prayer last year was…
My Lord, I pray that You guard every utterance of my mouth so that the words I speak will never again pollute the sweet scent of Your breath, but instead will carry forth from my being to bring You Eternal Glory.
Right now, while we still have His Breath in our lungs let us truly Glorify Him with every breath we take, we must pray without ceasing. I have found that
breathing in on -Je and out on the –sus
OR
breathing in on the -Thank and out on the -You
align perfectly with my inhale and exhale rhythm.
Genesis 2:7 – Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Our Spiritual Heartbeat
I wrote an entry in 2016, Every moment is infinite, about surface living or skimming the surface of life when our focus is always on the past or the future, versus deep living when we focus on diving deep into each moment and truly living in the present.
As I have thought about this more, I have come to call it our Spiritual Heartbeat. When we spend all of our time skimming the surface of life, we are following a straight line and our Spiritual Heartbeat is a flatline. When we spend time diving deep into each present moment, we are following a line with valleys and peaks between each moment and we end up with what looks like an actual heartbeat.
We are told again and again and again to live in the present moment, but I don’t think we grasp the urgency… it truly a matter of life and death. If you have lost your way or don’t know how to get started, start small. Sit still for 30 sec and count your breaths… our sweet Jesus shows up, He always shows up and He will revive you!
Ephesians 2:1-6
In the past you were spiritually dead because of your disobedience and sins. At that time you followed the world’s evil way; you obeyed the ruler of the spiritual powers in space, the spirit who now controls the people who disobey God. Actually all of us were like them and lived according to our natural desires, doing whatever suited the wishes of our own bodies and minds. In our natural condition we, like everyone else, were destined to suffer God’s anger. But God’s mercy is so abundant, and his love for us is so great, that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ. It is by God’s grace that you have been saved. In our union with Christ Jesus he raised us up with him to rule with him in the heavenly world.
Missing You…
My friends, I am not sure why but I have been distracted lately. Jesus hasn’t been at the forefront of my thoughts, instead I have been busy, running around, and missing Him. We took a yoga class together last night, and usually when He joins me He is helping me through, but last night in my imagination He was sitting there watching me (smiling, but still just watching). For some reason I have put Him aside instead of welcoming Him in?
As I miss Him, I am thankful for my previous posts that remind me that He is still here watching and waiting for me to call to Him again.
Please pray for me my friends, as you bask in His loving presence, that the veil covering me will be removed yet again, my eyes will be cleansed yet again, and again I will see only Him everywhere and in everyone!
A quiet breath in the darkness
Have you ever read The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis? My sister asked me to read them a few years ago and I am so thankful to her for it… I love these books!
In the book, The Horse and his Boy, Shasta is a little boy who is running away from the only home he has ever known and trying to get north to the free land of Narnia.
At one point in the story he has nearly reached his destination, but is left behind again because he can’t direct the horse he is riding. He is very tired and begins to feel so sad and so sorry for himself as he rides through a very dark night. What startles him out of his woe and sorrows is a sudden fright. He suddenly notices that someone is breathing right next to him in the darkness.
– From The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis
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What put a stop to all of this was a sudden fright. Shasta discovered that someone or somebody was walking beside him. It was pitch dark and he could see nothing. And the Thing (or Person) was going so quietly that he could hardly hear any footfalls. What he could hear was breathing. His invisible companion seemed to breathe on a very large scale, and Shasta got the impression that it was a very large creature. And he had come to notice this breathing so gradually that he had really no idea how long it had been there. It was a horrible shock.
…
So he (Shasta) went on at a walking pace and the unseen companion walked and breathed beside him. At last he could bear it no longer.
“Who are you?” he said, barely above a whisper.
“One who has waited long for you to speak,” said the Thing.
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The reason I am telling you about this is because it happened to me this morning. My husband is away and as I was waking up this morning I heard a quiet breathing in the darkness next to me. When I first heard it I lay in the darkness just listening to it and wondering who or what it was. Then I thought I must be hearing my own breathing so I held my breath for a moment and listened and it was still there, steady and quiet. My next thought was that one of my girls must have quietly come into my room in the middle of the night and was sleeping somewhere on the ground or in the bed. With that thought I sat up in bed to look around the room. There was no one else in the room with me.
I laid back down and listened to the breathing for a few more minutes before my alarm sounded to begin a hectic morning which made me quickly forget the sound of someone breathing by my side.
Later after everyone was off to school and I was finally sitting down to a cup of coffee, I remembered the breath in the darkness and I thought of Shasta and Alsan, the High King above all kings, breathing next to him in the darkness.
What if our sweet Jesus was here with me this morning as I was waking up? What if He was here waiting for me to acknowledge Him, talk with Him and ask Him what He would like me to do today?
I am sad that I missed my chance to whisper into the darkness, “Who are you?”, but thanks to Shasta’s example I hope I will not miss my opportunity next time.
We don’t sit quietly and listen enough my friends. He might be here with us more often than we realize and with all of the noise and distractions we have setup for ourselves there is no way we will ever hear His quiet breath as He patiently waits for us in the darkness.