BE-Gratitudes: 30 Days of Positive Attitudes – BREATHE
November 17th, 2021
Day Seventeen: Breathe
Matthew 11:28-30, ‘”Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to Me. Get away with Me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me—and work with Me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”’ (MSG)
What a powerful and hypnotic invitation from the Best Friend you will ever have. In a day where we aren’t accustomed to breathing deeply and trusting wholeheartedly and living completely, this is like a blissful prescription for relief.
I believe one thing the Pandemic and Covid hindered was our ability to breathe. Masks were so difficult to breathe in—fogging up our glasses, making our noses run, causing claustrophobia, creating tickles in our chest—I believe we each began taking shallow little breaths while the angst arose inside our chests. More times than I like to recall now I found my heart beating in my throat and a fluttering in my lungs and my inability to catch my breath or breathe deeply and satisfyingly.
I recently was a part of my precious daddy taking his final breaths on this earth. His medical condition was pulmonary fibrosis and COPD. He never smoked a day in his life and he took very good care of himself, but he did work in the mines where a very final dust called silica settled in his lungs. Years later it caught up to him and literally stole his breath. As I watched him stretch so to just take in a little bit of air toward the end, I had so much regret. A smoker myself for many years, and yet I watched my dad struggle for oxygen, is almost more than I can bear.
But see, we have been given a most powerful gift, and that is the ability to breathe, because we have been granted an offer to come away and rest. We have a body that the Lord has breathed His very breath into, and He wants our lungs to be filled with praises to Him and life-giving words to others. And in so doing, I believe we can find it within ourselves to breathe deeply, breathe in peace and confidence and breathe out hope and love.
Jesus, thank You for Your unforced rhythms of grace that cause me to pause in Your presence. I am grateful that You remind me to breathe…just breathe.
If you have difficulty with anxiety in the current stress you may find yourself in today, stop and breathe. Take a couple minutes to rest; then breathe deeply, and you might find how much better you feel inhaling and exhaling slowly and completely.
