The physical body is a marvel. We have limbs, cells, plasma, ventricles all working together intricately. It truly is amazing.
Throughout the Scriptures, the biblical writers use the body continually as an analogy to describe our spiritual lives. The most popular being the Apostle Paul’s admonition for the church in Corinth to be united and work together just as a body does, in fact, the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12).
Recently I was doing some learning about the human body when I learned something new, which, when it comes to biology, isn’t hard for me to come by. Regarding breathing,
Expiration occurs passively during normal, quiet breathing, requiring no assistance from muscle action.
As one of my friends stated, “This is why it’s so creepy when someone dies—they breathe out.”
What I find very interesting is that when you exercise your body, no-longer is the expiration of air passive, but is active. What is literally effortless during ordinary moments suddenly requires abdominals, internal obliques, serratus posterior, and internal intercostals, which are pulling the rib change down to force the air out.
As I recall how the Scriptures use the body as a metaphor for our spiritual lives, I couldn’t help but think of my patterns of exhaling. I reflected on taking a breather and the differences between the normal pace of my life and the exercise times.
When my spiritual life is in exercise phase I have regular prayer times and spontaneous moments, I’m in the Scriptures, I’m studying, I’m dreaming of what’s next, and I’m diving into relationships in accountable community. I’m working hard. I can feel the growth. The blood is pumping! I can feel the faith sweats of risk and trust. I’m locked in. Within the midst of this pace Sabbath—rest—exhale is hard.
Just as my physical body needs to work, using developed muscles to push the air out, I need spiritual disciplines to force me to exhale.
It could be easy to buy-in to the idea of a slow pace—no pushing, strive, working hard on our spiritual life. The problem is you never grow. Just as you can’t get stronger, increase lung capacity or stroke volume by sitting on the couch, so it is the same in our spiritual lives.
When I’m at a normal pace, Sabbath is natural. The exhale is effortless. It requires no effort. After all, I’m not pushing, dreaming, falling into regular relationship building with God and others. I sit and get spiritually unfit.
God has not made me to be spiritually unfit. Nor has he made you that way either.
We were made to be strong and fit. This is the struggle.
Work too hard; you can have a heart attack. Don’t work at all; you can have a heart attack. We need spiritual disciplines. Bill Hull tells the importance of spiritual disciplines,
Spiritual disciplines are tools that prepare us to do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and as it needs to be done.
Hull also points out to us that this isn’t about it always being “go” time. There is a balance within the work.
Jesus practices the disciplines in a healthy and balanced way. We don’t see him have any angst about them. He simply did what met the need of the moment. Some were staples in his spiritual diet, while he only used others on special occasions.
There are times when we need to work those spiritual muscles. Then there are times when we need to stop and take an effortless breath.
Living in the exhale isn’t real life, but neither is always having to work for it.
Let’s take a moment and breathe.
Now, let’s go work for the kingdom knowing that soon we must stop, let our spiritual body rest, and take some effortless breaths.
Check out the resources used in this post
joshtrombley.com 