BREATHE

Just take a breath! Breathe. Life became possible when the Divine Breath filled the First Man. The Church became possible when the Second Man breathed on His disciples. Your life is renewed and energized when you learn to breathe.

The Holy Spirit is referred to as the Breath of God in Scripture. Indeed, the word 'spirit' is the Hebrew word: 'ruach', and the Greek word: 'pneuma' (from which we get the English word, pneumatic).

The Spirit of God has made me,
and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
Job 33:4

To be 'out of breath' is to be tired, fatigued, spent. You don't have to be a runner to feel like this. Many people are breathless from trying to keep up with life. They have forgotten how to breathe, or at leastbreathe deeply.

Followers of Christ have a grossly unfair advantage when it comes to taking a breath. We have several Divine gifts that give us a huge edge in the breath-stakes. We enjoy the Breath Of God daily as we re-oxygenate our lives in His Breath of Life.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
Second Timothy 3:13

I just needed a moment to get my breath back. My day ended quite late last night. Increasingly my days are filled with that unwelcome sound of dead-lines wizzing past me. Increasingly, new opportunities present themselves which must be seized (although they paid no regard to my schedule by making an appointment with my PA, Miss Eyekal). Delightful interruptions now pepper my days so that I get to the end of my day almost breathless. Thus, last night I found myself needing to breathe. I turned to Titus for oxygen. I began to breathe again.

¶ But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.
Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.
Titus 2:2

Most people shake hands with those they reach out to. Jesus breathes on those He reaches out to. Without His breath in my face I simply could not go on let alone attempt to do what He has put before me. I suspect Poppi (my dog) felt at least some of His breath this week as we both went for late night walks together. Poppi was on the look out for cats to eat on our walk while I was praying. My heart-cry prayers to The-God-Who-Breathes frequently became praying in the Spirit. (I have long felt the benefit of applying 1Cor. 14:4). As I returned from my 3k walks, I was in one sense breathless but in a truer sense now breathingbecause I had been walking with The-One-Gives-Breath.

John 20:22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." 
John 20:22

The apostle Paul was breathing in his prison cell - then later in the Mediterranean - not once, not twice, but thrice! (2Cor. 11:25). (When you learn to breathe you can cope with things that overwhelm most people.) John was breathing on Patmos when he received the Revelation - even though he had just survived an execution attempt and was now experiencing banishment.
It's no coincidence that when God birthed His Church He did it with His breath (Acts 2:2) and everytime the Church meets to worship the Giver-of-Life we are renewed again by the Breath of God.

But it is the spirit in man,
the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand.
The Spirit of God has made me,
and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
Job 32:8; 33:4

Perhaps you just need to take a breath. The Breathe Of Life called people to breath and its recorded in the Psalm 46:10. "Be still", He wrote, "and know that I am God." Be still. Breath. Know God again. It's in experiencing the breath of God that we begin to understand. And surely we live in a breathless age and could use someone to show them what real breathing is.
Ps. Andrew