The Listening Heart ~ Just Breathe
We truly are fearfully and wonderfully made! Complex and fragile, yet simple and strong - capable to repair, regenerate, and reproduce - all at the same time!
Take for example our ability to breathe, just inhale and exhale, is something that we take for granted. But it is what delivers life to every other function of our being. The necessity to breathe and what we breathe not only supports the function of our being, but the quality of it. If deprived of oxygen it doesn’t take long for damage in our brain, heart, and lungs to occur. This effects and potentially disrupts communication in the central nervous system that tells our other body parts how to function.
Proverbs 20:27 is a verse that I have been focusing on recently:
“The spirit (breath) of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the innermost (chambers of the body) parts of his being.” (NASB)
Without “spirit-breath”, we are quite literally dead physically - we simply cannot live without it. God, our Creator, is the One who gives it. Said another way, without God’s breath (spirit), we cannot live. Gen. 2:7 reminds us of this truth:
“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
He owns our spirit (breath) and one day, He will recall it. It will at that time leave us and return to Him. He is the rightful Owner, Author, and Giver of it.
Proverbs 20:27 also tells us that our spirit (breath) is, “the lamp of the Lord” and it reveals to Him everything there is to know about us in our “innermost parts”. We need to understand that there is NOTHING hidden from Him - not even in the deepest, darkest parts of our being that our eyes cannot see.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary says it like this:
This is a divine light of His lighting. It is the inspiration of Father God, the Almighty, that gives us understanding. He forms the spirit of man within him. It is after the image of God that man is created in knowledge. Conscience, that noble faculty, is God’s deputy in the soul; it is a candle not only lighted by Him, but lighted for Him. The Father of spirits is therefore called the Father of lights.It is a discovering light.
By the help of reason:
-we come to know men to judge of their characters and dive into their designs
By the help of conscience:
-we come to know ourselves.
The spirit of a man has a self-consciousness; it searches into the dispositions and affections of the soul, praises what is good, condemns what is otherwise, and judges of the thoughts and intents of the heart. This is the office, this is the power, of conscience, which we are therefore concerned to get rightly informed and to keep void of offence.
I so appreciate the word picture of being divinely lit for and by Him! God’s thoughtfulness towards us and His purposeful inspiration is what gives us understanding! These valuable gifts of reason and conscience will guide us in grace to gratitude for all that He has invested in us if we allow it and respect it.
This is also accountability for us. Through our spirit (breath), we have life granted and have been given function, purpose, understanding, conscience and more, but many times, we fail to realize to whom it belongs and how dependent we are on Him for this one... little...thing! How we use our spirit (breath) reflects the true condition of our being. It is with our breath (spirit) that we speak blessings OR curses, life OR death.
He has met our needs without our asking, in the most basic ways. If you don’t believe me...JUST BREATHE! And then, with your next breath, give Him thanks and praise - for you are fearfully and wonderfully made, created on purpose, with purpose and for a purpose!