TAKE HEART: Take a Breath (Week 4)
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Hebrews 12:12-14 [NLT]: 12 So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.
Today: Take a Breath
Genesis 2:7 [NIV]: Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Jeremiah 6:16 [NIV]: This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
We display oppositionality. At its core, this means resisting an idea or a direction simply because someone said it. Resisting for the sake of resisting.
Oppositionality is generally an attempt to gain or regain control of something. It is human to resist the breath of life. To refuse to stop. To refuse to rest. To refuse to admit we are powerless—because we are in pain or discomfort.
When you can’t take a break, you can’t take a breath.
Acts 17:24-25 [NLT]: “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, 25 and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.
Psalm 103:11-12 [NLT]: For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. 12 He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.
When we don’t feel loved or we think that our struggles, pace, addictions, lack of physical discipline, lack of spiritual discipline puts a great distance between us and God, we failed to realize his love spans the distance from earth to space and from east to the west… even if the distance feels great to us, it is less than a millimeter to him. “To the infinite, all things are finite.” (Batterson)
Acts 17:27-28a [NLT]: 27 “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. 28 For in him we live and move and exist…
“Don’t assume God is watching from a distance. Isolation creates a downward cycle of fret. Choose instead to be the person who clutches the presence of God with both hands. We can calmly take our concerns to God because he is as near as our next breath. And because the Lord is near, we can be anxious for nothing.” – Max Lucado, Anxious for Nothing
His breath reveals it’s not just “die for you” love; it’s also “live with you” love.
I am not in control.
I am not in a hurry.
I walk in faith and hope.
I greet everyone with peace.
I bring back only what God gives me.
(Pilgrim's Credo)
