B is for Breathe by Bob Jones

My word for 2023 is “breathe.”

 

Rather than make resolutions I allow a word to find me. Yah, I don’t choose the word, the word chooses me. Steph Nickel writes about that here.

 

Over the last decade, the word of the year had prophetic effects. They predicted what I would face and could rely on during the next 12 months. In late December, the word “breathe” was continuously on my mind. So, I listened to my soul and embraced the word.

 

Breathing

 

Breathing is a very powerful biblical image. In Genesis God creates humanity from the clay of the earth. Yet the human being is merely a lifeless work of clay pottery until God breathes into the nostrils of the human. It is that first breath that gives life. God’s Spirit is described as breath.

 

One incredible thing about breathing is that you don’t have to think about.

 

The best part is, even when we are not aware of it, that powerful Spirit fills our lives in ways we may never fully know or appreciate. One does not have to be a champion breather to have breath. Neither does one have to be a champion Christian to have God’s Spirit within. Isn’t that freeing?

 

When we are least able to take the time to think of God and God’s presence, just like breathing, God is still right there. If that is reality when we are not thinking about it, imagine the power when we take the time to be deliberate and really give God’s Holy Spirit some serious thought.

 

Breathe. Breathe deep. Fill your lungs with the breath that flows from the One who created you and called you good.

 

Stressed

 

Here’s how my word is helping me. Stress, worry, and fear are triggers that cause us to either speed up or hold our breath. I tend to hold my breath. This stress response happens automatically due to our innate fight, flight, or freeze response.

 

Numerous times in January 2023 I have responded to unexpected stress and setbacks with a simple reminder to breathe. 

 

Just breathe.

 

Thin Air

 

Jill was seven years old when we first met. I was her pastor. Ginger curls reflected the fiery nature within her little girl spirit. Adventure was her mojo. Mountains became molehills for her. Now a Grade 6 teacher, she realized a lifetime dream of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in 2021.

 

As you climb the highest mountain in Africa the air gets thin. Incredibly thin. The higher you go the less you can talk because you have to focus on your breathing. It was one shallow breath after the other, one slow step after the other. She timed her breathing with her steps… a few steps at a time, then a stop to catch her breathing up. Concentrating only on the air drawing in and out of her lungs sustained her when the mountain’s terrain felt impossible.

 

She summited during a blizzard. Oxygen was harder to come by with each step. Ten minutes from the peak she fainted. With each labored inhale and exhale, she understood what it means to just breathe.

 

Trust

 

I love the Message version of Psalm 31:6,7 - “You, God, I trust. I’m leaping and singing in the circle of your love; you saw my pain, you disarmed my tormentors. You didn’t leave me in their clutches but gave me room to breathe.”

 

Breathe. Breathing in response to life’s pained moments is a reminder to trust God. “I trust you God. Things don’t look or feel good. But I trust You.”

 

Breathe. God doesn’t leave us alone. God doesn’t leave us in the clutches of crisis. Life’s tormentors are disarmed.

 

Breathe. The best room in your life is room to breathe.

 

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!” Psalm 150:6      

 

Bob Jones writes to grow hope, inspire people to be real, forge an authentic faith in Jesus, and discover their life purpose. You can follow his writing at REVwords.com
 

Let's Go for Plan B by Steph Beth Nickel

I love lists.

When the New Year rolls around, it’s just another excuse to create a list. Resolutions, goals, aspirations … call them what you will, but I love them.

However, I go into each year cognizant that it’s highly unlikely that I’ll achieve even a small fraction of those original goals. I’ve come to realize my Plan A is not the same as God’s.

So let’s go for Plan B, as in B for better … best even.

How does this apply to my writing?

Well, when the HopeStreamRadio podcast first joined the plethora of others soaring through cyberspace, I had the privilege of being one of the first producers. However, I had a lot to learn. (I still do, but things are progressing.)

That first series of devotionals, If You Love Me … let’s just say it wasn’t particularly memorable.

This year I have the privilege of re-recording this series from the gospel of John. As I prepare to do so, I am refining each five-minute script.

One of my goals for 2017 is to publish at least two ebooks. With some modifications, this collection may be the first in my Nurture & Inspire series.

Ideally, I would love to have published four or more ebooks by the end of the year, but that’s not going to happen. For one thing, this is a new learning curve for me.

For another, God is leading me down some unforeseen paths and teaching me the lessons He knows I need to learn.

We can react in a number of different ways when our plans don’t go as we’d hoped.

We refuse to ask what His plans are.
It is my goal to commit each day, each task, to the Lord, but too often I don’t do so. If I know better and don’t do it, I can’t expect those who don’t express any desire to find God’s path for them to do better. Even so, it’s never a good thing to leave the Lord out of the planning stage.

We balk and try to continue on the path we’ve laid out for ourselves.
When we pray, we don’t always like what God shows us. We shake our head and think, “I couldn’t have understood Him correctly. He can’t possibly expect me to go down that path.” However, we must remember that God is in the business of making us holy, not necessarily happy. “His ways are not our ways,” as it says in Isaiah 55:8.

We plop down in the proverbial middle of the road and refuse to budge.
When I look back over the years, I realize I’ve often felt sorry for myself, sulked, and/or voiced my discontent—often loudly. I’ve dug in my heels and failed to consider where the Lord was leading and the lessons He was teaching. Thankfully, He is patient—longsuffering as it says in the KJV.

We walk the path God’s lays out—grudgingly. 

I can’t remember how many times I quoted Philippians 2:14 to my children when they were growing up. We are to “do everything without grumbling or complaining” (NIV).

Yet, how often do we figuratively roll our eyes and think, “Fine! I’ll do what I’m supposed to do. But I won’t like it”?

This thought may never actually cross our mind, but we may not have discovered the joy of actively pursuing God’s plan for our life.

We embrace the lessons He’s teaching us and wonder what adventure lies around the corner.

I would love to say this is always my first response, but lying is bad.

The apparent detours in life are often the best place to grow and mature—and to find fodder for our writing.

Plus, we can count on God’s timing.

It’s the right time for me to re-record the If You Love Me series. And maybe, just maybe, it may be the time for me to send my first collection of devotionals out into the world in a different format.

How about you? Do you know the next step on God’s path? Are you willing to take it? Are you trusting Him to work it out for your good no matter how far from your Plan A it is?

Another year over, a new one just begun by Lorrie Orr

Resolutions never work for me. I begin in a flurry of activity, doing all the things on my list, but soon, within a few days or weeks, real life takes over. The resolutions disappear leaving faint traces of failure and disappointment in my own abilities.

This year, I'm taking an idea from someone else. Instead of resolutions, she establishes a theme for the year. And so, I've been thinking about a theme for several weeks, searching and praying for what the Lord might suggest to me. Two verses have been impressed upon my heart.

First came a group of verses from Deuteronomy 30:11-14 "Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it."

I realize that I keep waiting and waiting for signs from God to show me what to do - with my writing, with my love of art and craft, with my longing to create in various forms. It was as if a rock had landed in my front yard, engraved with these words. Do what is in your heart, for I, your God, have put it there.

Then, on the Sunday before Christmas, the sermon included this verse, "Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished." (Luke 1:45)

I especially like this because it was written for a woman. When I believe, I can leave results in God's hands, not my own. That frees me to create with abandon.

And so, my theme for 2008 - In Belief...Create.

Workout With God - Lynda Schultz

"… train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." I Timothy 4:7b, 8

I just came in from a four kilometer walk. I burned close to six hundred calories and took over ten thousand steps. My blood pressure dropped ten points. Besides all those healthy physical benefits, I got out into the fresh air, enjoyed a stroll through the bush with no one for company except squirrels, birds, and God.

Paul's right—physical exercise is a good thing. He says that it holds "promise for … the present life." Amazingly, he knew all this before diet books, aerobic tapes, and personal trainers. My morning walk is good—I might even live a few minutes longer because of it.

However, Paul's primary concern is the relationship that the "here-and-now" has to the hereafter. The important question in his mind, as it should be in ours, is how many "kilometers" we have walked each day with God. My spiritual workout in pursuing God and being godly, not only benefits me here, but it also has implications in the life to come. Because it has a wider application, that spiritual exercise ends up being more valuable than its physical cousin.

The time I spend exercising with God doesn't prolong the eternity that I will spend with Him. After all, eternity is, well, eternity. I think Paul is referring more to quality than he is to quantity. Just as physical exercise improves quality of life, so spiritual exercise—the pursuit of God and godliness—improves the quality of life here, and multiplies the joys which await me in the hereafter.

 When I seek God and His righteousness, the calories of the world are gradually burned off. As I move closer to Him, the weight of stress which often characterizes life in this present world, melts away. The uphill battles are easier as I become more conscious of the invigorating breath of His presence filling my spiritual lungs.

From spiritual exercise I gain temporal and eternal benefits which only cost me a little bit of discipline.

I am not normally given to making resolutions when a new year dawns on the horizon. However, I will make an exception when it comes to committing myself to more spiritual exercise—after all, next year I'll be that much closer to eternity.  

© Lynda Schultz 2007