His very name... my every breath...

The other week I was attending a devotion at Feed My Starving Children and my boss shared the neatest thing...

I don't know if sometimes I think differently about things because I know I have a son waiting in Heaven... (actually, I know he isn't waiting... he is having the time of his life... because I do believe fully he is very much fully alive:)

 But I think that  sometimes I view things in light of all I have gone through and for sure living through the death of my son has changed my perspective a bit at times...

I am sure I won't get this exactly right, but I have been wanting to share this beautiful message I heard that day with you...

My boss was sharing about experiencing the presence of God in our lives... Do we really recognize His presence with us daily in all we do... in the small mundane things... in the BIG things?

He mentioned when Moses was in the wilderness and experienced the encounter with the Lord in the burning bush...
The Lord told Moses that He was indeed standing on Holy Ground and told him all that He wanted Moses to do in helping to free His people from slavery in Egypt...

He was truly experiencing a very real and obvious presence of God with him... The bush was on FIRE!!  With the very POWER OF GOD!!!
Here is the response Moses had...

• Exodus 3:13-15, “Then Moses said to God, ‘Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I shall say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you.” Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” 14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” [YHWH]; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM [YHWH] has sent me to you.’ 

Now here is where it gets really cool and I have done some more research on what my boss shared... God's name in the original Hebrew is unpronounceable.  It was only made up of consonants and not any vowels therefore making it a word that couldn't be pronounced...  not because we are forbidden to pronounce it — but because if one tries to do so, pronouncing these four strange letters (semi-vowels, semi-consonants; linguists actually call them aspirate consonants) WITHOUT any vowels, 
one simply breathes.

You might pause to try this yourself: try to say "YHWH" with no vowels. Not "Yahweh"  but with no vowels at all.

 Almost everyone who tries to pronounce the Lord's name like this "YHWH"  experiences it coming out as a breath...

The very name of our great God is like a breath... How often do we breath every day?
The average person breathes between 20-30 breathes a minute or between 17,000-30,000 breathes a day...

That means that with every single breath out of our mouth it is almost like we are saying the very name of our great God with each exhale we let go from our body... Just think about it... every few seconds it could be as if we are saying or calling out the name of our Savior... God...

 What could this all mean? if we took more time to think a bit deeper about it and all that our breath means to us in different stages of life, how might we think differently about each breath we take? 

When a baby is born... is he taking his first breath or is he uttering the Lord's name with his very first action here on earth?

When we are panting in exhaustion are we repeatedly calling out to our father God... Yahweh... LORD...?

When  we are in deep sorrow or grief and all we can do is sob and gasp for each breath... are we really calling out in anguish for our God to comfort us and be right beside us in our pain?

When we consciously take that first breath after we open our eyes in the morning... are we recognizing the Lord, saying His name and, acknowledging His great gift in giving us another day of life?

When we sigh in a moment of relief or awe, could it be that we are calling His name in praise  for his comfort, guidance, or the beauty in this life?

When someone dies... that final breath... is that him calling out to his creator one last time before he is in his arms in heaven?

So amazingly beautiful!

That is the kind of presence of our God that is truly accessible to us... He IS with us... He is omnipresent... ALL PRESENT... every single second of every single day... Do we live with that in mind?

I truly want to... Oh how we can take our very breath for granted... Most of us just do it and don't even consciously think about it for the most part...

But with each and every breath... it can be... and IS as if we are saying His very real true name... Yahweh... LORD... Adonai...

Experience His very real presence right beside you today:)

I want to live with that in mind... with every breath I take...