Breathless - Martin Wiles

Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. Genesis 2:7 NLT

His chest heaved as he gasped for the breath he could not find.

Born with asthma, my middle brother’s attacks soon began to come with regularity. Occasionally, the attacks were severe. As my brother gasped for breath, Dad would scoop him up and cart him to the emergency room while Mom stayed with me and my youngest brother. Nurses placed him in an oxygen tent and doctors examined him. When the attack passed, they sent him home. His asthma prevented him from playing sports in school, and more than thirty years later he still has to take medicine so he can do manual exercise without encountering breathing problems.

I watched the same breathless gasps with my daughter. While in high school, she developed exercise-induced asthma. Although she could once run track and cross country with no problem, now she couldn’t. Cross country was out of the question, and short track runs brought on attacks that led her to breathless gasps. Only inhalers, paper sacks, and cold washcloths drove them away.

There was a time when everything was breathless—animals and humans. If not for the power of God’s Spirit, it still would be. God instilled breath into the animals. Then He created man and breathed the breath of life into him. Apart from that breath, man would have remained a lifeless lump of dust.

The story of man’s beginning reminds me I’m not the author of my life. I didn’t begin it, I don’t preserve it presently, and I won’t end it. As God continually breaths His breath into me, I live. When He decides to stop, I will too. I’m not a product of fate or chance but a purposeful human being created by an almighty God.

I came from dust and will return to dust when I die, but in the meantime, God has work for me to do. My worth is based on who made me, not anything within me. Since God made me and breaths His life into me, I can accomplish whatever He created me to do. That plan may change many times over the course of my lifetime, but with each new direction, He breathes the strength I need into my body.

Remember your Creator, accept His breath, and do what He made you to do.

Prayer: Father, thank You for the breath of life which allows us to accomplish what You created us to do.

Tweetable: Are you doing what God created you to do?

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