Pastor Chris
This might seem hard to believe, but there are times in life when I get a little frustrated. Sometimes these frustrations have to deal with random acts of chaos by small children, sometimes it’s the traffic, sometimes it’s the news, and sometimes it’s just trying to figure out how to navigate living in this world. And if you know frustration, there are times when you just want to scream! But screaming rarely helps. Getting angry in the midst of these frustrations doesn’t usually help.
When I’ve been getting frustrated recently, I’ve found myself swallowing down the anger that often comes with it, and then I take a moment. I breathe. Because when I simply respond, that’s when things often escalate instead of calm down.
To breathe in times of stress isn’t just good for your physical well-being, however. It’s also good for your soul. Scripture is full of moments when God’s holy breath has restored or enlivened things that were incomplete. From the very beginning of creation, God’s spirit moves over the waters of chaos, and brings order to the world, separating light from dark. The Hebrew word for “spirit” in this first encounter with God in the Bible is ruach. Ruach can be translated as spirit, or wind, or breath. So the breath of God breathes life into all creation. In the second chapter of Genesis, we are told the story of God creating Adam – the first human being – out of the dust of the earth. We are told the being has no life until God breathes into Adam – life coming from God’s holy breath. Later on in scripture, we hear Ezekiel’s vision of a valley of dry bones, and it is not until Ezekiel – at God’s urging – prophesies to the breath that the formerly dry bones live.
Sometimes I think it’s valuable for us to realize that these breaths we take are indeed holy things. As God breathed life into creation at the beginning of all things, when we breathe in, we are blessed with another moment of life. God has blessed us with the gift of breath, a holy thing that challenges us to balance the ebbs and flows of this world. To breathe in is to receive again God’s holy blessing. I wonder how we would respond if we truly saw this as true.
So as we enter into the fall, with stressful times upon many of us, I remind you – take time to breathe. Take time to participate in the holy gift of life that God has given us every day, so that no matter the stress, no matter the hurt, you are reminded that the gift of life and relationship found in God is still present for all of us here today.
Pastor Chris