During these difficult times in our nation, I wanted to pause a moment to describe how God has been speaking to me and directing my spirit (breath). As I shared this past Sunday, the metaphor of 2020 for our nation seems to be centered around breath. Both the coronavirus and the events surrounding the murder of George Floyd share the commonality of not being able to breathe. I only ask the question as a matter of prayer, but wanted to share it here for us to pray together.
Could God be trying to unite us as a people around the idea of breath itself in 2020? If so, what might that mean for us as the people of God?
As an asthmatic, I know what it means to be unable to breathe. When my lungs are triggered, an inflammatory response happens that constrict my airways and cause more of a "gasp" rather than the calm intake of air. As a minister, I have also come to appreciate the Spirit of God in the way He describes Himself, which is often as "breath."
In the Greek the word is "pneuma" and in the Hebrew the word is "ruach." The "breath" of God is both literal and spiritual. It is literal in that we are reminded in Genesis that God "breathed" life into Adam. It is spiritual, in that Jesus described God as "Spirit" -- and He said that those who "worship God must worship in Spirit (breath) and in truth (meaning).
I've seen and experienced what it means to breathe this way, but I have also seen what it means when the people of God begin to gasp, that is to say to take in this breath unevenly.
Worshipping God is the combined result of allowing God's goodness to breath into us and provide meaning for our lives. This combination leads to a life of service to one another and aligns us in the garden of God's love so that we might produce fruit that is readily identifiable in acts of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control.
Breath is slow and deliberate. In the cases that we are literally breathing well, we don't even notice we're doing it. So it is with God. Whether in our individual lives, our church lives, or our political lives as citizens in our democracy, it is when we are not breathing slowly and deliberately that we notice our lack of God's breath, and that is when we begin to gasp for it. The gasp is uneven, desperate, and often rash. It tends to be reactive rather than proactive and it doesn't always bring the best out of us as Christians.
For the remainder of this month, I am asking HPCC members to breathe slowly and deliberately. In our spiritual breath, let's truly seek God for His solutions to what our communities are experiencing. I believe that He will show us where we fit in the fabric of His Kingdom in these moments. And I believe that I know each of you well enough to know you will respond to His leading in the fruits of the Spirit, which run deep in you and have sprung up from a fertile soil of a healthy church family. Pray for God's leading, for your staff, for the grace of God upon us all, and for our country.
I am attaching to this email a very general sketch of last Sunday's message and this Sunday's direction. I thought it might make our time together easier to follow as so many of us are streaming the main meeting live.
Love to each of you, first from Christ Himself, and also from me.
David