Stepping Stones: Do You Think You Are Breathing But Are Really Choking?

Transformational Thought

Do you ever watch people swimming like I do at the beach or the pool? Some can stay underwater for just a few seconds, and others can stay under for a long time … up to 90 seconds. I even had a friend who was an Olympic water polo player who could hold his breath for three and a half minutes! But in the end, they all desperately need air and gasp for it when they take that first breath after being underwater.

In life, so many people are slowly asphyxiating. This suffocation is manifested in feeling overwhelmed, lonely, never caught up, unimportant, I need a drink, have to have my coffee to get started, unsafe, worthless, stupid, left out, incompetent, lost in life, glass half empty, never get a break, guilty, shameful, need to eat to soothe, passed over, picked last, picked on, looks just not right, physically mushy build, and for some, flat out hopeless, helpless, and sometimes suicidal. Why? Because they are not spiritually “breathing.”

To pray is to breathe. And people are not praying, so they are spiritually dying … or maybe they have never really lived. Just as the body can’t do without oxygen, our spirit, our essence can’t do without prayer … without breathing in God. His Word is our daily bread and prayer is our daily breath.

Prayer is an opening of our hearts to God, who already dwells within us. Praying allows us further connection and understanding of His spiritual world … then our spiritual radar starts to get tuned and tweaked to God’s settings so we breathe Him in and connect more powerfully.
We then receive His communications without interference … life becomes easier and more fulfilling. We become more Christ-like as we know and follow Him more.

Have you ever experienced that scary choking feeling when something is caught in your throat? Satan wants to deceive us into think we have more important things to breathe in each day. But his elements are actually obstructing our breathing and choking us. Satan gets us to think that spending time talking to God is a waste, as if it were an obstruction we can’t afford in our day. Don’t be so easily tricked.

Today, stop and do this exercise for me. Hold your breath as long as you can. The urgency and powerful way you gasp for air, that is how much you need God every second of your life! Pray deeply, breathe easily … or pray shallowly, choke fearfully. As usual, it’s your choice. What will you do? I pray you choose well, your life depends on it.

Prayer
Dear Father, I praise and honor You, my Lord. I know You have created everything. Even though I believe in You, at times I cannot breathe. I struggle for air like a swimmer that has gone too deep and now I am rushing to the surface for that gasp of air. Today, I feel like I will not make it to the top. I am learning now that You are my only source of air, my constant source of air and of “life.” Infuse me with Your Holy Spirit, Lord. Help me regularly dedicate time to breathe You more deeply into my heart. I pray this in the name the one who fully and constantly breathed You in, Jesus Christ – and all God’s children say, AMEN!

The Truth
What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
1 Corinthians 6:19

All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
John 1:3-4

For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?
Deuteronomy 4:7