It's All in the Breathing

[HKHaugan]

Wisdom 3 It’s All in the Breathing

 I’m not sure if everyone gets the difference between what the world calls wisdom and the wisdom of God. There are 417 uses of the word wisdom in Scripture and amazingly they all find their resolution in one name, Jesus. What wisdom looks like is wrapped up in Him. That’s the difference between the world’s wisdom and God’s. One is a human intellectual concept subject to shifting cultural influences and nuanced adaptability. The second is the singular life of a Person. The world’s is adaptable, changeable and elusive while God’s is unchanging, non-negotiable, stable and eternally personal.

 But a refresher look into both is the frequent need we have to make sure we stay on course. It’s like looking at our respiratory system. We have lungs that depend on a balance of oxygen, nitrogen and other gasses. It seems oxygen is the really important ingredient. You see football players having trouble catching their breath after a strenuous play. They have oxygen tanks on the sidelines to replenish what they use up on the field.

 In the non-believing environment sin is the exhausting spiritual toxicity. It uses the spirits of fear and pride to keep depleting the spiritual air of an individual as he struggles to breathe in his relational environment. The secular world inhales and exhales the spirit of fear to energize its wisdom. Its major justification can be felt when someone defensively says, “I’m really a good person. My basic intention is to be good.” If we have a need to defend ourselves to ourselves and then to others, who is it we are defending ourselves from?

 Defensiveness is the self-governing method based on fear and pride. Fear and pride are the spirits that drive persons inward, isolating them through the anxiety of facing relational, cultural and social conformity---alone. Fear and pride not only drive us to rationalizing our thoughts and behavior, but they drive us to do the same when we are being questioned by others.  The more defensive we are, the more we fear. When ‘fitting in’ is the primary principle for survival, the end is utter aloneness. Those who depend on it wear themselves out obeying it. You get so tired that all you want to do is withdraw, escape, be alone or in a safe place. It’s too demanding to be in any challenging social or relational experience that makes you feel uncomfortable. Every moment is taken up worrying about what other think, how others get ahead, learning the ‘ins-and-outs’ of relating without offending anyone and making one’s self acceptable and marketable. It’s a cold and merciless place when you fear. Pride’s wariness feeds on the fear of exposure to the suffocating attitudes and opinions of others who also are driven by the same secretive trepidation.

 In the believing environment, where a living relationship with Jesus moderates, we have one eternal relational spirit, the Holy Spirit. Breathing the Holy Spirit brings love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal.5:22-23).   These are imbedded in the grace and truth that fill the mind, heart and spirit of a believer and the community of believers. A disciple of Jesus knows that it is through God’s Spirit of wisdom, we inhale and exhale those qualities in the moment they are needed.

 There is also a contrary methodology our spirit is given by the Holy Spirit to counter the world’s wisdom. There is a spiritual breathing cycle. Our spiritual exhalation is repentance. We repent which is exhaling our sins and inhaling the Spirit of forgiveness. The next step is exhaling our first impressions and inhaling the impressions the Holy Spirit moves in us. For instance, the way we see a person when we meet them if it’s through secular eyes. They have an ethnic look, a regional tone, an attitudinal bias, a socio-economic identity, an emotional bent and so on. As disciples of Jesus we simply see everyone as an image of God and go from there with the Spirit’s leading. A whole lot simpler, believe me.

 The world tries something else. It bids us to inhale its fear and we exhale it because without God, there is no other atmosphere. Without belief we just add to the fear of others and if they operate the same way it spreads to everyone around. But a disciple breathes in the Holy Spirit bringing God’s forgiveness for each future moment. Belief, trust and faith trump fear. They clear the spiritual air since the fruit of the Spirit enters the atmosphere around the disciple who is exhaling a different air, God’s grace. God’s grace, God’s love and God’s faith win the day.

 Remember this however. The spiritual result of a disciple’s momentary words and action is always positive. It may not be seen at the moment of delivery, but it will sink in. Sin is resistant, but, like an ice cube, will melt. It needs time and patience, part of the fruit of the Spirit. Just think, how long was it for each of us before we got it? And, hopefully, we recognize our ongoing need to relax and breathe in the Lord’s Spirit while we are on His way every day. That’s the part of ‘getting it’ determining how we grow in the Lord, which is wisdom from the Lord, which is spiritual, which is personal, which is relational, which is the discovery of the joy of the Lord, which is unfolding in every next moment when we step out in faith, which is……..you add your own testimony here.

 “The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails---given by One Shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them (Eccl.12:11-12).”