With His Breath

Inhale. You are unworthy. Exhale. No one will like you. Inhale. What are you doing here? Exhale. You don't belong.

Chaos. Struggle. These words don't even begin to describe the state of my mind during the later half of 2015. It was right about the time that I began leading my own Bible study that I started to get them. These thoughts. The ones that attacked my identity, inspired doubt and left me feeling shaky and lost in my faith. These weren't necessarily new thoughts; they've come up before. But, they seemed worse this time, harder to get rid of. Nothing I did seem to help. So, I ignored them. Pretended they weren't there. After all, how could they hurt me if I they didn't exist?
Fast forward to the first week of September. I was headed to IF:Lead in Orlando, Florida. Something I had been looking forward to for months. It was my chance to connect with other IF leaders from all over the globe, to be equipped for leadership and to gather resources. It was going to be amazing! Yet, the closer it got, the more dangerous the whispers became. Are you sure God told you to do this?
Satan's MO hasn't changed. He has been using doubt since the beginning. Since his first encounter with Eve, the cunning serpent has used this strategy to incite dissatisfaction and create a sense of entitlement. It's all he's got. After all, he really has no power or authority. Unless, we give it to him. And, that's what I had been doing. I had been letting him convince me of things I knew weren't true. Why? Because, like Eve, I was sure that God was holding out on me. I was willing to listen to Satan's lies for a chance at more.

God first revealed the word breathe to me in December 2014. The exposure was brief and before I knew it, I was onto another word, something I needed more. Then, in September 2015, at IF:Lead, He brought it back to me.
It was there that I purchased a necklace from The Giving Keys; one with the word breathe on it. It was the one I had first seen in December 2014. At first, I thought the word was about calm and rest and comfort. But, God helped me look at breathe a new way that weekend. 
During the first session of the event, I found myself convicted about the way Satan had been taking over my thoughts with his lies. I prayed that God would teach me a new way guard my mind...because what I had been doing wasn't working. I went to bed burdened. During the night, I was abruptly awakened by a dream in which I first found myself walking, oblivious and without concern, through a wild animal facility and which ended with me being attacked by a lion. In my dream, I had not been aware or alert, as Peter warns us to be in 1 Peter 5:8. I had been indifferent and self-righteous. Something had to change!

As I stood in line, waiting for the doors to open the next morning, my dream and its implications were heavy on my heart. That's when the woman standing next to me noticed my necklace and proceeded to tell me about a verse in 2 Thessalonians that she had, in years past, used for spiritual warfare. God spoke His truth to me that morning about how to fight the attacks of the enemy. With My breath, He said.

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the 

breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. 

2 Thessalonians 2:8

Clearly there was something special about this word, breathe, but I still wasn't convinced. It took two more, unrelated books/studies to finally get to me choose, to research, and to claim it as my word for 2016.

* * *

When I was a kid, I remember wondering about my breath. About how breathing worked. How was it possible? I recall sitting in the car, looking out of the window, watching my breath form a fog on the glass. Wondering. Will this ever stop? How will that feel? I was fascinated by this process, which continued without my intervention. Oh, I could stop it, briefly. But, I couldn't keep it going if it decided it was done. In. Out. Watching the trees and cars zoom past, I wondered about the mystery of breath. In. Out. 

It's still a mystery to me. 

Breathing. It is a rhythm we take for granted. It happens with ease, an involuntary function of our body. It is only when there is struggle to gain air or when I focus on the inhale and exhale that I even notice it's there. 

God spoke and with the creative power of His breath brought the whole earth, and all that is in it, into existence. Everything that has life came from Him. God's Word is His breath, written on a page. It is Jesus. The person - the action - of God coming to us, taking on flesh. 

He has no past and He has no future. He is, and none of the limiting and qualifying terms used of creatures can apply to Him...

To each one he would reveal not only that He is, but what He is as well.

AW Tozer, Man, The Dwelling Place of God

What will God be for me this year? He will be what he has always been. My breath. The only thing that gives me life. He gave me my first breath of physical life and the breath of my re-birth into my spiritual life. But breath is not a one-time act. It is a continuous process of inhaling and exhaling. One that I cannot do without Him.

I chose breathe as my word for 2016 because it's something I have no control over. While I can be intentional about breathing deep and I can slow my own breath, to sustain either of those activities is beyond my control. So, for me, 2016 is really about God doing something - breathing new life into me. Arming me for battle and helping me recognize the boundaries I have set, the boxes I have attempted to fit Him into. My job is to let Him do it. And, then I can watch as the walls come down.

I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am Lord...

Ezekiel 37:5-10

To breathe is to take notice. To pause. To pay attention. To gaze instead of glance. To think and reflect. To take time. To drink in what's around you - the sights, smells and sounds. Every time I take a breath, I am recognizing my part in His story, drawing from His deep well. There is no end to Him. No boundaries. 

And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Ephesians 3:18-19

You see, it is more about His breath than mine. My breath is shallow and restrained and temporary. His breath has depth, is without bounds and is eternal. In the story of the woman at the well in John 4, John tells of Jesus' encounter with a woman who by cultural standards should be despised and rejected, but with whom He speaks and shares the truth about His identity. The woman describes the well as very deep; Jesus assures her of the greater depth of His living water. In Luke 5, Jesus tells his disciples to "go out where it is deeper" and recast their nets. And, in Luke 2, Mary lets the thoughts and experiences of birth of her son, the Messiah, sink deep into her heart. 

While there are depths to Satan (Revelation 2:24), it does not compare to the depths of God. Satan is limited by God. The love with no bounds defeats him. The breath of Jesus will cause the great adversary to become nothing. That which gives life, brings death to the very thing that wants to destroy us. What power!

Christianity consists primarily not in what we do for God but in what God does for us—the great, wondrous things that God dreamed up and achieved for us in Christ Jesus. When God comes streaming into our lives in the power of His Word, all He asks is that we be stunned and surprised, let our mouths hang open, and begin to breathe deeply.

Brennan Manning, Abba's Child

Drink deep. Breathe deep. Then, I can exhale all I have taken in. It is a release. A giving back. To let go. To refresh. 

Again. And, again. 

Inhale…

love,

grace,

freedom,

power,

wonder.

Exhale…

abundant life.