The Sound of Our Breathing

The Sound Of Our Breathing
Take a breath and breathe it out. Do it again, slowly, and try to mean it. Breathing – of all things maybe we take it most for granted. Do we ever wonder why we are built this way, this soft machine of ours always pumping oxygen in and out?

In sadness, we breathe heavy sighs. In joy, our lungs feel almost like they will burst.

In fear we hold our breath and have to be told to breathe slowly to help us calm down.

When we’re about to do something hard, we take a deep breath to find our courage. When looking at it this way, can breathing be said to be a kind of praying?

But what is the sound? What are we saying?

When Moses had the nerve to ask God what his name is, God was gracious enough to answer, and the name he gave is recorded in the original Hebrew as YHWH. We’ve added the vowels to it to have it become Yaweh.

Breathe in again …Yah now exhale….Weh. A wonderful question rises to excite the imagination: what if the name of God is the sound of breathing?

This is a beautiful thought, especially considering that for centuries there have been those who have insisted that the name of God is so holy that we dare not speak it because of how unworthy we are. How generous of God to choose to give himself a name that we can’t help but speak every moment we’re alive. All of us, always, everywhere, waking, sleeping, with the name of God on our lips.

It makes you wonder what this means in key moments like when a baby is born – newly arrived on planet earth, must they take their first breath, or rather speak the name of God if they are to be alive here?

On our deathbed, do we breathe our last breath? Or is it that we cease to be alive when the name of God is no longer on our lips?

Can’t find the words sometimes when you pray? Breathe in. Breathe out. It’s all we need. Yahweh. He knows our hearts. In Romans 8:26 we read “He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs.

-Taken from The Rabbit Room- Jason Grey 2011