The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
Job 33:4 NASB
I’m beginning to think that surrendering is going to be a lifelong journey! As I have written in the past, I’ve been trying to understand how to DO less. I’ve felt frustrated about the fact that I’m not “actively” walking out my Christian faith, because I know that faith without works is dead. So how does that fit into surrender and allowing myself to just be, letting my body be an expression of Christ in me. Just this week, I sat on the couch, and in exasperation said, “It doesn’t seem like enough to just BE!” This is a legitimate concern but I have a secret vow that is complicating things for me. I was raised by a father who gave little emotional effort to our family. His focus was on being a financial provider for us. His lack of purposeful investment in life left him an emotional shell. As I watched my dad, I made an unspoken vow to live my life as a man with purpose. My fear is that if I stop doing, I will lose my purpose.
Not having a purpose is truly terrifying for me. The Lord confronted my fears with this quote from Rabbi Lawrence Kushner about God’s name, Yahweh.
In order to make the word pronounceable, we have added the “a” and “e” but the actual Hebraic name of God is: YHWH. From Rabbi Kushner: “…in truth [these four letters] are unutterable. Not because of the holiness they evoke, but because they are all vowels and you cannot pronounce all the vowels at once without risking respiratory injury. The word is the sound of breathing. The…Name of the Creator is the sound of your own breathing.”
Okay, that’s worth reading again.
God comforted me by revealing that the simple inhale and exhale of my breath is calling His name. I am not ever in a state of just “being.” I am continually in a state of calling on Him, praising Him. His name is forever on my lips and I am truly praying without ceasing. Why, because I am simply being. Through the renewing of my mind, I am becoming aware of what I am calling out, and every moment of life becomes my communion with Him.
Ultimately, He is asking me to surrender every purpose, and reducing me to the act of breathing. Maybe then, He will start to speak regarding His purpose for this living sacrifice—my body, my life. I have to be willing to be reduced to nothing (just to a breath). I have to be willing to return to dust, totally dead, for Him to be able to breathe into me the breath of life. Then the “works” that James talks about will flow, but not from me trying to walk out my purpose, rather from His purpose flowing through me. Maybe my purpose will be to just breathe. The story isn’t over…
Psalm 150:6
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD
Have been back to this post (and His life in it!) so many times…don’t think i left ‘it’ at all the first day. Heard Derek Prince once say in essence, that when God changed Abram and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sarah, He breathed the syllable of His own name, His own Life into them.
Oh, and as Martha noted similarly in a recent devotional, how much more does He breathe into His own recreated ones in Christ!?
Thank You, Lord, thank you Mike, eternally for this!
I am awed. Just breathing. Wow. Thank you Mike for sharing.
There is a celebration going on about this post. Thank you to the Author!
Truly inspiring Mike and the essence of Sabbath rest. You would be thinking right about surrender… we were created for His good pleasure. From observation, if we are not surrendered, we can be like a spiritual chicken… running around with its head cut off… separated from the life of God.
So it seems He has called many of us aside to be still for a season, but He is doing a work. Wish I understood more of it.
I have had to STOP everything for the last 2 yr. work, church, relationships, and just BE. It is God ordained and most likely something He is doing in many in the body for His purpose. I am seeing Him and His Kingdom, being prepared as His bride and learning to live from the tree of life and abide in Him. Moving from death to life.
God is not bringing everyone’s life to a virtual halt but in each His own way I believe He is accomplishing His process of restoring all things.
How beautiful…
Mike, something about this revelation of God struck my spirit so deeply that it evoked weeping and worship -beyond my understanding. The word Spirit actually means ‘breath.’ And the wind is so gentle in this writing but the power of it is life striking . . .
“The word is the sound of breathing. The…Name of the Creator is the sound of your own breathing.”
Oh my…
My reaction exactly. Thank you, Tammy, for putting it into words