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Have you ever found yourself with your head down, pushing forward in life? You are so consumed with making sure everything in your life and those around you is moving forward that you end up doing the bare minimum needed to keep you going. Eating on the run, lacking quality sleep etc. For me I find myself taking shallow breaths, just grabbing what I need but not really breathing the way I should.
For most of my life I have been a singer and I can still hear my music instructors voices saying “breathe from your diaphragm!” This is very helpful when you sing but it can neglect your lungs that are designed to help you breathe and to circulate much needed air. Recently I took a couple days vacation and the first morning I woke up (to no alarm clock!) and laid in bed just breathing deeply. It started off as part of that relaxed morning stretch when you have been able to sleep in but it felt so good to just be still and breathe that I found myself continuing for almost thirty minutes.
During this time God began speaking to me about deep breaths. He told me that when I don’t take time to breathe deeply it can over time weaken the capacity of my lungs. As I continued to breathe and think on that I realized how true that was. I realized I spend far too much time grabbing quick shallow breaths and it doesn’t enable me to have that capacity I need. How many of us can say that we exist on snatches of air as we race from one activity to the next? When I lay there breathing deeply I found myself becoming far more aware of how my body felt as my lungs expanded and how my cells responded to the inhale and exhale of air. Let’s consider how this crosses over to how we spend time with God. Do we spend time deeply breathing in our relationship with Him or do we grab short shallow breaths to get us through to the next activity we need to do? This change to shallow breathing can happen so subtly and we can overlook it so easily. Life can be so busy that we spend so much time just trying to keep up. If you find yourself in this rut of just running and trying to keep up it can load you down with stress. Stop. Take some time and just start breathing deeply! Be reminded that it is the deep times with God that gives our spirits the capacity to move forward.