Tuesday, January 15, 2013

When you're gasping for air...just breathe.

 
 
 
 
 
 Job 10:12
You gave me life itself, and incredible love.
You watched and guarded every breath I took.

 
I didn't start the New Year off quite like I expected to.
 
It began with the sniffles for a few days accompanied by lots of tiredness,
which then turned into a persistent and nagging dry cough.
The next thing I know...
I'm sitting in the ER, the last place I wanted to be,
 gasping on a nebulizer due to a severe case of Bronchitis.
 
Not at all what I expected.
 
That, my friend,
has been the last two weeks.
 
Although I am feeling 100% better today,
I can't say that about the past week.
 
I sat on my couch a few nights ago, alone in the quiet and darkness of my living room,
praying to God as my lungs worked aimlessly to take in another breath. Gasping for air I prayed,
"Just one more breath God. Give me strength for one more breath."
 
Honestly,
I couldn't see anything passed that at that particular moment.
 
I just needed to get through each breath,
one at a time.
 
 He whispered into my heart,
"Why do you not pray that way every day? Why do you worry about tomorrow when you just need to worry about the now and let Me take care of tomorrow? All I need you to do is trust Me and breathe. Just breathe."
 
A single tear ran down my cheek.
I sat there quiet, motionless,
breathing Him in.
 
In the still of the night...He embraced me, breathed His life into me, filling me up.

Hasn't He always been just that...
my breath of life?
 
I've been in a place of worry lately.
 
A place I haven't been in a long while.
 
I'm not sure why or how I even got here,
in this place of worry.
 
Why do I let myself go to such a place?
I don't like it there.
It drains me so.

Worry is birthed from fear.

It's birthed from those moments when I'm gasping for air.
Those times when I don't think I can even make it to the next moment,
much less the next day filled with the unknown.
Those moments I fear the worst before it even happens.
Most of the time...it doesn't even happen at all,
 so I've wasted some precious moments and breaths worrying for no reason.

The thing about fear is, that it's a choice.
 A concious choice.

I can either choose to trust or I can choose to fear.

It's just that simple.

John 10:10
I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.

Jesus died so that we would find freedom in every area of our life.
That includes those areas where we choose to fear and worry.

He desires for us to obtain full freedom, not partial freedom.
He is the God of wholeness.
There is nothing that He does half way.
He does everything to completion.
He wants our lives to be complete and abundant in freedom!
He desires for us to just breathe in each moment as it comes.
One at a time.
Moment by moment.
 Breath by breath, leaving everything else in His hands.
He wants our trust.
He wants our knowing of Him, not tomorrow.

He wants us to savor the moments of now with Him and just breathe Him in.
It's in the breath of now that we will find His peace.
 
 It's taking one breath at a time, until we get to the next, then the next, and so on.

No more gasping for air in fear of what tomorrow may or may not bring.

Just breathing in...right here, right now.
Living abundantly in the breath of life that He brings to each moment.

When you find yourself in a place of fear, or worry, or doubt...just breathe.
When you find yourself in a desperate place...just breathe.
When you're gasping for air...just breathe.

Breathe Him in.
He's right there with you.
Just breathe.

"Just one more breath God. Give me strength for just one more breath."

 
 Matthew 6:25-34
 
"I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

 

 
 

2 comments:

  1. Praying a healing over you right this minute. It's funny because I have found myself in that same place of worry. It grips my heart. Controls my days and I gain not an ounce of daylight from it. Nothing productive comes from me worrying and yet I CHOOSE worry. Sigh....freedom comes when we let go and just breath. Freedom.......

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  2. Beautiful. I needed this. Thinking of you and came over to say hi. Hope you are well, and completely healed from Bronchitis!

    ReplyDelete

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