Breath of God: Key to life

Girl with eyes closed, arms raised and hands holding her hair away from her face - feeling the breeze, and breathing

I had no idea what lay ahead when I began seeking to understand and to live by the Breath of God.

At the time, I worked with women torn by demands that they choose between women’s ministries and women’s missions organizations. In essence, they were being told they had to choose between inhaling and exhaling.

Underlying that were other messages most of us had received, but few of us had faced:

  • We were to obey the letter of Scripture, as our denomination taught it.
  • We were to distrust and avoid the Spirit, whom the Father and the Son sent to teach us all things.
  • We were consigned to “women’s work,” which was segregated and circumscribed. Whatever we did was counted peripheral, not pivotal, to the kingdom of God.

And so I began to teach, “A Matter of Life and Breath,” to women who were expected to live the Christian life without any breath at all.

Together, we explored the parallels between Spirit and breath. We learned:

Christ-in-us is to us as breath to our bodies. As we interact moment by moment with him who is the Breath, we receive and release God’s life.

In the process, we know him and make him known. And that IS the work of his kingdom.

It is also the wonder of relationship. Our interaction with the Breath of God is key to communing with Christ. It is key to going with him. It is vital to building relationships with other people who are learning to live from their true identity in him.

Now, 20 years later, I also realize:

Receiving and releasing the Breath of God is key to passing through deep waters and not being pulled under. It is key to walking through the fire and not being consumed.

Receiving and releasing the Breath is, in fact, the primary act of faith that gets the toxins out and the life-giving stuff in, no matter what you’re going through.

The series

This Life and Breath series is a result of my ongoing attempts to put into words the very essence of living in Christ. I offer these posts with the prayer that you will find more than words here. By God’s grace working in both of us, may you find spirit and life.

This post is the most free-floating of the series. It can serve as an introduction, an overview or a summary. The other six posts fall into two groups of three.

Posts 1-3 introduce and explore the concept of spiritual breathing.

Spirit to spirit: A matter of life and breath: In Scripture, God makes a direct connection between breath and spirit, and so, between the act of breathing and the act of relating to him. By his very choice of words, he identifies “spirit” with something we know intimately and require profoundly. He shows us: As breath is to the body, being filled with the Spirit and living in the power of the Spirit are vital to life in Christ.

Inhaling the breath of God: As you inhale the Breath of God, you are being filled with the Spirit. You’re choosing to receive the different aspects of the life the Lord is breathing into you. You’re opening yourself to mystery and paradox, growth and change. As you inhale the Breath of God, you embrace life.

Exhaling the breath of God: As you exhale the Breath of God, you walk by the Spirit. Animated and motivated by the Spirit, you give what you have freely received from him. As you exhale the Breath of God, you release life.

Posts 4-6 explore a letter to a dead church (Rev. 3:1-6) and a cry to dry bones (Ezek. 37:1-14), to find what happens when God’s people stop breathing.

Breathing crises in the church: Our Lord does not sit idly by when his people have breathing problems. He who created us and who gave himself for us knows how crucial it is to act when breathing stops.

God’s cry to the breathless: God notices when someone he loves stops breathing. He notices, and he cries out: It’s me! Wake up! Remember how! You will come to life. You will come to life! And you will know who I AM.

God’s call to the breath-filled: When someone can’t breathe, it’s time to act. Often, however, the person with this problem cannot initiate action. As we learn to live by the Breath, God may entrust us with being first responders to others who cannot breathe.

The prayer

Breathe on me, breath of God:
fill me with life anew,
that I may love as you have loved
and do as you would do.
– Edwin Hatch, 1878


I published the original version of this series in summer 2013, some 14 years after I first began to teach on the subject, “A Matter of Life and Breath.” In 2019, I revised and republished all seven posts. Now, because these truths are so crucial, I’ve reposted this post with minor revisions, and renamed it from its original title, “Breath of God.”

Image by Pezibear from Pixabay

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Pamela Reagan

    Very refreshing video/music. And also….thanks for the links to all of the “Breath” blogs on one e-mail. I flagged and saved that one so I can read all of them straight through and be refreshed again. 🙂

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