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Just Breathe

Just Breathe

One of my mentors has taken on a new exercise routine, and was recently talking about how his trainer was teaching him to breathe. I, too, have had to learn the value of breath when I’m exercising. I can remember back in the day when I wanted to start running and the hardest part of running was to gain control of breathing.  It was my brother who taught me that you should inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. If we breathe through our mouth while exercising, we tend to work much harder and find ourselves in that "trying to catch your breath" place. The more we exercise the more we learn that our breathing is crucial to the whole process.


We can also find ourselves needing to just breathe when life seems busy and chaotic. I have a couple friends that tell me many times to "just breathe". It’s a statement that carries way more meaning than just physically breathing….it reminds us to stop, look and listen and to breathe in that high-quality oxygen that fills us and and when we do things can somehow change dramatically. In the few short seconds that it takes to inhale and exhale we create enough space to re-orient us in how we might respond or act in those times when we seem to be out of breathe.


One of my all-time favorite praise and worship songs is "This Is the Air I Breathe".  The composer writes; this is the air I breathe, your holy presence living in me, I’m desperate for you, I’m lost without you. These words speak to how one cannot live without God’s presence in our life, that God is the very breathe we take to live and survive in this life.  There are so many references to breath in scripture that connects us to God.  We read how God’s Spirit is described as a breathe that breathes on us to assure us of God’s presence, God’s sustaining love and grace, a breath that gives us life.




Psalm 150 encourages us to praise God in all that we do, wherever we are…and it’s the last verse of the passage that captures the essence of our need to breathe;


 Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord !


Psalm 150:6


​​If we can learn to breathe it seems that so much of our day-to-day living takes on so much more clarity and meaning.  Whether it be learning to breathe as we exercise our body, or taking the space to breathe deep when faced with a challenge…or simply breathing in the air we are given each day.  This air we breathe connects us to something far greater…its life-giving…it sustains us and creates in us a holy space where our breath is God’s breath living in us. When we can visualize this while breathing, it seems to make each breath more purposeful, have more meaning, and equips us to be God’s blessing to others in this world.  Just breathe!


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Hot Springs Village · AR 71909

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