We cannot survive without breathing. We cannot function well when we are not breathing well. For us who are human:

Breath is vital to life

Yet, how often do we busy, determined, anxious, overwhelmed humans forget to breathe? We get so entangled in life’s web that we fail to fill our lungs – slowly, deeply, regularly – and to release each life-breath in the same way.

Lately God has reminded me, often: “Breathe.” As I concentrate for a few minutes on a process programmed to keep me alive whether I think about it or not, I’m keenly aware:

Breathing is inhaling and exhaling

It requires both taking in and giving out. A simple experiment brings this obvious truth home. Try it if you like.  

First: Inhale for as long as you can – without holding your breath or exhaling. Start now. Keep going. Keep going …

Whew! How long did that last? Days? Weeks? No. Seconds.

Then: Exhale for as long as you can – without holding your breath or inhaling. Start now. Keep going. Keep going. Until you can’t.

My guess? You were able to exhale longer than you inhaled, but you still had to measure it in seconds.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Unless we do both, alternately and continually, we cut off our life.

As I breathe now, I remember with gratitude:

God is the source of our breath

The Lord God formed the human from the topsoil of the fertile land and blew life’s breath into his nostrils. The human came to life. (Gen. 2:7 CEB)

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. (Job 33:4)

As I inhale, exhale, slowly, fully, I realize God’s words about the breath, and his call to me to breathe, have more than one meaning. I thank him that what’s true physically can help me grasp what’s true spiritually.

Often, God uses things in the natural world to show us aspects of himself, his kingdom, his ways. The natural world is finite, hurting, frail; so the comparisons aren’t exact, yet they can be incredibly helpful.

As I breathe, I ponder something Scripture reveals that is not obvious in English translations:

God makes a direct connection between breath and spirit

Thus, God connects the act of breathing and the act of relating to him.

God is spirit. (John 4:24)

Now the Lord is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:17)

Both testaments speak often of the Spirit of God, and the New Testament tells us this mystery: The Spirit comes to reside in everyone who believes and confesses that Jesus is Lord.

In the original languages of Scripture, the same word that means “spirit” – ruach in Hebrew, pneuma in Greek – also means “breath” or “wind.”

And so, by his very choice of words: God identifies spirit with something we know intimately and require profoundly. He suggests we can learn something about spirit – and especially something about relating to him who is Spirit – by observing wind and breath. Passages like Ezekiel 37 and John 3 go beyond suggesting, to make the connection outright.

The Breath gives birth to breath

In John 3:5-8, Jesus said:

Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, “You must be born again.” The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

Here, Jesus compares the Spirit and the wind:

• by using the same word to mean both (though in English we see two very different words);
• by teaching Nicodemus to apply to the Spirit what he had observed about the wind.

Also, Jesus repeatedly speaks of the Spirit using the imagery of birth. In so doing, he points to further connections between spirit and breath:

When a mother’s water breaks and her baby enters the world through the birth canal, the child immediately takes his or her first breath. Doesn’t a similar thing happen with “everyone born of the Spirit”? At the moment of salvation, we receive the Spirit – and thus draw the first breath of our new life.

If we read Jesus’ words, “The Spirit gives birth to spirit,” as, “The Breath gives birth to breath,” we’re reminded of CPR. One person breathes into another, to cause one who is not breathing to start to breathe again. We’re also reminded of Genesis 2:7: God breathed into Adam the breath of life. God had so designed Adam that he could receive that breath and continue to breathe.

In the new birth, the Holy Spirit (Breath) enters us, quickening our human spirit so that the person God designed us to be can finally, truly begin to live.

Notice how swapping the word “Breath” for “Spirit” heightens similar birthing imagery in Titus 3:4-6:

When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Breath. He generously poured out the Breath upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. (NLT)

Physically, we realize: The first breath is just the beginning. We continue to live as we continue to breathe. We live most fully as we learn to breathe deeply and well.

Yet we may completely miss the corollary:

The Breath is vital to life in Christ

Here’s where God has gone beyond what the imagery of CPR can show. He has gone beyond the “breathing into” that he did at creation. In John 14, Jesus said he was leaving this world so that Another like himself would come. Jesus called him, “the Holy Spirit,” and, “the Spirit of truth.” Jesus promised he “will be in you” (vv. 17, 26).

“Now the Lord is the Spirit.” The Spirit isn’t just a life force. He is the living and life-giving Lord, the God who breathes.

What’s more, the Spirit doesn’t breathe life into us and then leave us on our own to take it from there. He enters us and remains in us, repeatedly filling us and empowering us. He who quickens our human spirit continues to nurture us Spirit-to-spirit – to teach, to remind, to counsel, to comfort, to encourage, to correct, to rebuke, to protect; and also, to authorize, to strengthen with power, to send out, to sustain.

The rest of this series explores far more deeply how we can know and cooperate with the Spirit of God. This is key: Knowing him, flowing with him, is a matter of life and breath.

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This post was originally published under the title, “A Matter of Life and Breath,” on July 17, 2013.

Image by engin akyurt from Pixabay.

Life and Breath series

Breath of God – key to life introduces the series and tells how I began teaching it.

Three posts explore how it looks when our lives breathe with God’s life:

• Spirit to spirit: A matter of life and breath
• Inhaling the life and breath of God
• Exhaling the life and breath of God

Three posts explore two stories from Scripture, to find how it can look and what God does when his people have cut off their breath:

• Code blue! Breathing crises in the church
• Code blue! God’s cry to the breathless
• Code blue! God’s call to the breath-filled

Other posts on Spirit-to-spirit intimacy

• Dear weary one, can we talk about the spirit realm?
• Humble your soul, release your spirit
• Living by the Spirit
• Our Spirit-to-spirit birthright
• Mastering the language in which God speaks
• Praying for God