At the end of a particularly full week, I sat in a moment of blessed silence. I took a deep breath and cleared my mind from all that had transpired the week before, intending to set my sights on the week to come. In the moment of calm I heard, as I often do, a nudge from the Holy Spirit. "Are you listening?"
I mention that the Spirit meets me often in moments of quiet, not as a testimony to my holiness or devotedness but rather as a proclamation of His goodness. You see the past few years have been moving at breakneck speed - the constant transition and stretching has me often feeling wrung dry. The only way I've managed to move past the anxiety that settles upon me like an old familiar shadow is to press into my connection with God. Again, I say only as a testament to his goodness that every time I seek him, He meets me. And so as I find the weight of life crushing, I've sought Him more frequently than ever before. The more I seek him, the more I find Him and the greater my desire to meet him becomes. His willingness to be entangled in the my mundanity never ceases to amaze me. But when I heard the question "Are you listening?" recently, I felt there was something deeper he was inviting me into.
I began to think about the appointments I set with God and how I lay out pockets of quiet in my day. But the reality is, few of us have many, if any, pockets of quiet. What if instead of moments of pause, I was so connected with the Spirit that I met him with every breath. I can't help but think that as God breathed his very life into Adam, bringing him into existence, that He imprinted us with the desire and perhaps the capability of a relationship so profoundly deep. Tracing the theme of God desiring to dwell with his people through the Bible is a staggering exercise. The cliff note version is that the story finds its two part climax as God takes on flesh to tabernacle among his people in Jesus Christ and then sends his Spirit to indwell his people. God himself walking among and having relationship with his people and then making his permanent home WITHIN them. Surely this sort of intimacy has significant implications for our daily lives. The Spirit of the One who breathed man into existence not only holds all things together, but calls us to commune with him in every breath we take.
Tonight as we sat down to dinner, Zeph offered to pray for the meal. He's working on memorizing the Lord's prayer and instead of saying "give us this day our daily bread" he inserted "give us this day our daily breath". Little did he know with his misstep he was giving his mom something to sob about later. It really is Him in whom we live and move and have our being. In Him all things hold together, not just in form but in function as well. I truly need him to give me my daily breath, and he's good enough to not just supply that, but to meet me in every breath.
I wanted to take this personal reflection and share it with you because I see you. I see you as the weight of the big and the little, the daily struggles and the decade long struggles grasp so tightly that you feel you can't get a full breath. I see you as you battle that debilitating anxiety. I see you as the pile of papers on your desk pile up and you wonder if it's worth the stress. I see you as your heart is breaking for your child. I see you as you doubt yourself every day wondering if you're enough. I see you, but more importantly He sees you. I promise to you that His character is not one who sees from an unattached distance, but rather waits for you to connect. Are you listening? He speaks. Not just in hurried, empty comfort but he speaks to the depths of your soul which was created by his breath and to be filled by his breath.
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