Breathe

A lot is written about the techniques and benefits of breathing for physical, emotional, and spiritual health.  Sometimes Christians dismiss this teaching as un-Christian, something they must avoid. I've written about the use of the breath in the Jesus Prayer.  I've also offered you an example of a Breathing Prayer.  That other religious and non-religious practices celebrate the use of the breath doesn't make the breath less important for Christians.  In fact the opposite is true.  The use of the breath universally is evidence that it is from God.

Remember, the breath is at the core of the biblical and spiritual tradition.

In the beginning the Spirit (Breath) of God came upon the earth (Genesis 1.1ff). After the Resurrection, Jesus entered the upper room and breathed on the disciples and they received the Spirit (Breath) of God. At the new beginning (the church) the Holy Spirit (Breath of God) came upon the church (Acts 2).

With such biblical evidence of the priority of the breath for hooking up with God, why resist it. When you don't breathe you die. When you're stressed, your breathing becomes shallow (and you're moving toward death). But when you open to God, and breathe in great gulps of the Spirit, you live.

Don't grieve the Holy Spirit by resisting the practice of breathing as prayer. Instead, draw in the fullness of the Spirit with deepening breaths.

A sure way during the day to come back to your senses in Christ is to simply return to your breath and let the Name of Jesus rise and fall with each breath.

Then smile.  You're alive.  Exquisitely, unexplainably alive.  A true miracle.