What If We All Just Slowed Down, Long Enough to Breathe?

I was shocked, the first time I heard of it. A breathing app? I mean, why would anyone need reminders on their phone to breathe?

With a list that seems like, I scratch off one item and add two more, I run faster, push harder to take excellent care of the babies in my home.

I remember my first child, twenty-six years ago. He woke once and I was groggy for days. And now, here I am with two babies.

“It’s been two years and eleven days since I have had a full night sleep…but whose counting.” I add a winky face, to lighten my tone, on Facebook.

As humans, somehow we think we can cut corners, dig into grace with human efforts….mortal strength.

I accumulate doctors appointments and more appointments, little ones with special needs, long drives with deep thought nagging at me frequently….

But still, even in my car driving, I plan, organize and schedule in my head…orchestrating my life from the bucket seat of my white SUV.

Until my phone chimes on. “Breathe”……The app’s reminder always comes at the most inconvenient times.

I reel in my wandering mind, trying to wrangle this life. I check in with myself, take stock, sit mindful of the place and space I take up….

In a world where it’s easy to exist, but somehow more difficult to actually, fully LIVE.

I remember training for a 5k (3.1 miles) many years ago. I trained long and diligently, had a plan and agenda that I wanted to reach.

The date was set, my goal was honed with hard work and purpose that would give me the results that I needed for my own sense of self-worth….

Yet, amid my training, someone told me…

When you are running well, you should be able to BREATHE, talk and have conversations simotaneously while your racing.

My gasping, sweaty palmed horse-like clop to a destination hardly landed as some casual run where I could actually “breathe” well in the middle of it.

And I can easily run my life like I ran that race, having goals, longing to get someplace….but missing the moments of being present, losing myself in a task or accomplishment….

Missing the beauty that’s around me each moment, failing to let my chest fully rise, experiencing the depths of each breathe, knowing the transcendence of time; when it is lived, really lived…well.

I look at my Savior; fully present. Completely engaged, eyes locked, ears listening to the hearts that beat in time, when He met people face-to-face.

He was fully present…But am I?

Jesus took detours through Samaria, seemed to intentionally be in places people thought meaningless, as if He ever so intentionally made Himself available for God’s unconventional agendas and purposes.

Yet, how often do I miss the “now”…..the beautiful, full-breathe of miracles waiting to happen each and every day…because I am too busy?

How often do I fail to slow down, run my race forgetting, too hurried to rehydrate with what I need most; the Water of Life?

How often have I missed out, because my agenda someone trumps the lessons in the waiting, the beauty in the listening, the truth in saying, “I just need to rest.”

And maybe going nowhere is the destination when it lands us in the Father’s lap.

Maybe He restrains us for seasons of rest, like a thoroughbred, desperate to get out of the gate….

He uses the stalls of time, the gates of heaviness to slow our shifting self down.

He wants to carress our main, whisper into our ear, teach us, it’s not just about running, but knowing He is constantly near, being able to shift all we are at the response of His small voice.

And perhaps those breathes, fully in….fully out…are where time stops and life is worked out for us….where Holiness seems closest to us, and what matters becomes clearest to us?

Perhaps, in the fully engaging, feeling, tasting, seeing….we transcend consumerism and become willing participants in this gift called life He has given us but as a minute.

It is then, in the moments waiting, the long, slow breathes taken….we truly see….

• See the children all around us, the ones He has given us just to love.
• We open our eyes to times we might never experience, people we never would have comprehended….
• And it is then, when we breathe, step out into a world, instead of living wrapped in self, fully recongizing the shallow agendas we’ve created to help us survive.

We all run a race in this life. It’s a race He has called us to finish well.

And to finish well, He doesn’t just want us to drag ourselves across the red line exhausted, worn out….so ragged, we cannot enjoy our reward.

Our delight is not in just our Savior existing far off someplace in heaven, but in finding Him near, every single step of our race.

It is about the lessons He wants us to slow down so He can teach us. It’s the knowing of something greater, and the understanding that we are not the center of the planet.

It’s to breathe….deep, intentionally, always….knowing the King of King and Lord of Lords is safely by our side.

Because if He can move mountains in a day, stop the sun, turn day into night….

 It is in the knowing of His love, the fully breathing and experiencing thankfulness of who He is….where real holiness dwells; real peace and happiness, real quiet and contentment reign.

And maybe the sound of my phone reminding me to stop and experience Him….in a moment, one minute as I breathe….

Is less of a curse, and more of a blessing…one I constantly need throughout my day. What about you? Do you take time throughout your day to remember He is near?

He is enough. Breathe.