Take A Breath

“Everyone is but a breath” (Psalm 39:5)

Life began with a breath. We read in Genesis, “[God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” With one breath, life began.

Breathe in. Take one deep breath and hold it. Don’t let it out. Hold it for just a moment. As you hold that breath, you are holding the most precious gift you have. Now let it go. Somewhere, right now, there is someone fighting to get one more of those. Somewhere there’s a family desperately wanting a loved one to take one more breath. Somewhere there is someone taking their last, and somewhere there is someone taking their first.

According to the American Lung Association, on average, people take 17,000 breaths per day, 6 million breaths per year. Your life is the sum of those breaths. I once read an inspiring little quote: “Life isn’t about the number of breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away.” That sounds real nice, until you can’t get one, and then you can flick away that little phrase faster than the ashes off the end of a cigarette. Life is suddenly all about getting that next breath. But you won’t, one day. One day, hopefully after you have taken well over half a billion breaths, you will take your last. Job said of the Lord, ”In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” The one who gave you your first breath has the date for your last. Until that day comes, each moment that has taken your breath away through all the years of your life, all added together and multiplied by the number of a lifetime of breaths, will not hold a candle to what you will experience on the other side of that one last breath. You will never know what that phrase means, “a moment that takes your breath away,” until you experience that moment when your breath is finally taken away and you enter into the presence of the one who gave you the gift of every breath that has sustained your life in this world.

In Hebrew and in Greek, the word for breath is the same word for spirit. In most English translations we read that God “breathed into [Adam’s] nostrils the breath of life,” but the word also means the “spirit of life”. Or as Solomon wrote, “The dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” I don’t know how many times you’ve blown the candles out on your birthday. One day, what has been represented by all those candles over all those years will find its final fulfillment in that one last breath, and in that moment, you will find the most glorious gift ever to be given awaiting you. All of it, every candle, every gift, every breath, every moment that has taken your breath away is all leading to that moment. For every child of God, it is inevitable.

Breathe in. Take one deep breath and hold it. Don’t let it out. Hold it for just a moment. Now let it go. One day, it will be your last, and the wonder on the other side of that moment when your last breath is taken away is what every breath along the way is leading to. There is a reason we say the most awe inspiring moments take our breath away.

“Everyone is but a breath.”