Reading an article about the body and our breathing, in Men’s Journal made me consider the person and work of the Holy Spirit.  The article, titled, “You’re breathing all wrong, addresses the need for proper breathing to improve performance and to feel clearer all the time.

     In the Old Testament, we read that God breathed into human beings the breath of life.  Breathing air gives life.  It brings vitality, health, and rejuvenation to each cell within our body.  When we breathe we take in air, it flows into our lungs and oxygenates our blood nourishing our bodies in the process.  When we yawn or exhale we are getting rid of the bi-product of that action, carbon dioxide, and the cycle continues. We use various muscles in the process of taking a breath.  The most efficient muscle being the diaphragm.  As we have grown more sedentary, having poorer posture, and just aging in general, we use smaller and less efficient muscles to breathe.  In so doing we are unable to gain the true benefits of taking each breath.

     The word in Hebrew, “ruach” , means Spirit, breath, or wind. In the New Testament the Greek word “pneuma” is used to convey the same.  The bible tells us that the Spirit brings life.  Just as air is important to giving us physical life, so too the Spirit is important for our Spiritual health and well being.  In Wayne Grudem’s, “Systematic Theology”, he writes, The work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the active presence of God in the world, and especially the Church.  Further he continues, The Spirit empowers, purifies, reveals, and unifies.  Just as we need to take in a full refreshing breath of air, to keep us active an whole, we need to take in fully the Spirit of God and let him have his full way within our lives.  We need the Power and healing of the Spirit, that gives us the bi-product of purification, just as we rid ourselves of carbon dioxide.  Grudem writes, the Spirit gives stronger or weaker evidence of the presence and blessing of God according to our response to him.  Just as we can limit how efficiently we breathe, by using the weaker muscles, we can limit the work of the Spirit in our lives by becoming dull and un-responsive to him.

     Jurgen Moltmann writes,

Where the Holy Spirit is present, God is present in a special way, and we experience God through our lives, which become wholly living from within.  We experience whole, full, healed and redeemed life, experience it with all our senses.  We feel and taste, we touch and see our life in God and God in our life.

     God has given us His spirit.  Breathe!

Quotes: Chuck Thompson, You’re breathing all wrong, Men’s Journal, June 09

                Jurgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life.

Picture: Breathe! by, Mike Schinkel