There are times when I smell something so stinky it changes my breathing. I don’t want to keep breathing it in. Sometimes I shut the air vent on the car when behind another vehicle with smelly exhaust and hold my breath until I do so. Then, after getting away from that vehicle, I will roll down the window to get rid of any residual I still think I smell as I drive on inhaling freely.
What is most pleasurable is when I exhale the air behind me as I walk into the house and smell something good being baked or cooked. It is then that I begin to inhale deeply to draw in the blessed smell into which I am coming. Yes, it draws me in as I draw it in.
Life is about breathing. We must breathe to live. Breathing is the act of exhaling the bad air in our lungs to make room for the inhaling of the good. Then we are oxygenated and energized for moving on.
Someone has said, “Inhale the future, exhale the past.”
Peter urged living with a looking ahead to what is to come in writing. . .
“(3)Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, (4) to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, (5) who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-5 ESV)
As we understand we can do nothing about the past except to learn from it, living in the present are we doing so with a whiff of the living hope of the eternal inheritance God has prepared for us? It is a living hope intended to breathe life into us to presently sustain us as we walk on with God toward that end. Though the name for God, “YAHWEH”, was generally considered too holy to speak, it is noted as the act of breathing; “YAH” (inhale) and “WEH” (exhale). As God breathed into Adam the breath of life (Genesis 2:7), God is our breath for life and the provider of hope for it eternally. Therefore, let us breathe deeply as we journey onward toward our eternal destination with Him!
Have a great day INHALING THE HOPE OF GOD!
Carl
