It really made me think. This kid president is fun, has a
lot of good things to say, but the one thing that stood out to me was the “take
a breath…isn’t that amazing!” Think of how simple and yet profound it is to
take a deep breath. Pause right now and take a long slow deep breath…in thru
the nose and out thru the mouth. It is amazing. Taking a deep breath is
refreshing. It brings fresh oxygen to the blood and revitalizes life. It’s a
quick pick me up and it’s free.
The problem is we live life in such a way that we seldom
breathe. I mean really breathe. Mostly we go through our day with short shallow
breaths. We loose the art of breathing. The whole breathing rhythm we had as
babies gets disrupted. We get too busy to take a deep breath. And that is sad.
But that isn’t what I want to talk about. It made me think
about how we breathe spiritually. What brings us life and energy in our
spiritual walk? It’s reading and studying the Scriptures. To stop and breathe
in the Words of God is to allow spiritual oxygen to infuse our soul. Yet we get
too busy to do it.
Thanks to Tim Csepe, I recently read my cover letter from
over 10 years ago. I included what I thought was the most important parts of
being a youth pastor. I talked about the time my faith really came alive, you
know when God breathed life into my relationship with Him. It was when I
realized I needed to be in the Word of God for myself. The Scriptures is the
very breath of God that we can breathe in every day.
It made me think of this video:
We miss out on so much joy because we fail to stop and
breathe. When you read and study the Word of God, it will come alive and change
you (Hebrews 4:12). Don’t think that going to church and hearing a sermon is
good enough. Even when you hear a solid sermon, you need more. Don’t think
youth group is enough. You need more. Don’t’ think reading one time is good
enough, you need more. Just like oxygen, you need a regular and constant supply
of the Word of God to truly live.
And when life gets tough, you need it even more. Think of
the professional football player who breaks away for a 92 yard touchdown and
goes immediately to the sideline and grabs and oxygen tank to catch his breath.
He did good, but needed to refuel. Even in peak physical condition he is still
dependent on oxygen.
So even when you are living life the way God intended and
seem to be in peak spiritual shape, you still are dependent on the Word of God.
Yet because we often neglect it, we have developed habits and
sins that have destroyed our understanding. We need to constantly be in the
Word of God for it to transform our lives (Romans 12:2). I’m thinking of my
great aunt who smoked her entire life. She spent her life filling her lungs
with smoke and not oxygen. In her old age she had to have an oxygen tank to
pump pure oxygen in her because her receptors were so destroyed that normal air
was not enough. Sometimes we allow sin to be so deep that the only way for us
to survive spiritually is to have a constant hook up to the pure Word of God.
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