It seems lately that when people talk about the cold and flu season what they really mean to say is anytime between September and June.  Honestly, as long as students are going in and out of the great germ and bacteria development locations to learn and then dispensing the micro stuff back at home what shot do we have of remaining healthy?  For the most part I manage to escape the "season" with a couple of tickles in my throat but occasionally I get the enriched version.

My body has been actively fighting whatever strain of the common cold I have these past several days.  I’ve had the all too well known symptoms of coughing and sneezing, I'll not grace this space with those details but I had a couple of episodes where I felt as though I was really fighting to catch my breath.  I've never had to deal with asthma (nor do I have it now) but I got my first real taste of feeling short of breath.  I longed for a full satisfying intake of oxygen but had to settle for little ones instead until the coughing subsided and I was so glad when it did.

I got to thinking that there is a striking resemblance to our spiritual lives.  Someone even wrote a song about it:

This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence living in me

This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very word spoken to me

And I I'm desperate for you
And I I'm I'm lost without you

Marie Barnett

I believe that there is real truth in the above lyrics.  God's holy presence living in me is as essential to life as breathing is.  Why is it then that so many of us settle for brief gasps of air instead of filling our lungs?  A little prayer before meal time or bed or perhaps a few minutes of worship enter our week and then we carry on as though this should sustain us, meanwhile our spirit suffocates.

Physically I take breathing for granted.  It is one of the functions that happen without me having to think about it and I'm grateful that this is the arrangement God set up for my body.  Spiritually, breathing is a conscious and an "on purpose" choice that we must make if we expect to experience life in all of its abundance.  God's Word, prayer, worship and simply abiding in the presence of the Lord are all a part of what it means for us to breathe.