The Air We Breathe

     I'd like to start out this week's FTM with a big thank you to my dear Union Heights Elementary family for inviting me out to speak at their Fellowship of Christian Athletes FCA meeting earlier in the week. It's always great to get around a classroom full of kids, they speak from their hearts and they intently listen to what we say. Their eyes are watchful and our actions definitely speak louder than our words! Advice to self and others, live life like you are on a stage, you are!
      As I prepared my message for the mighty Tornados, I wanted to come up with an object lesson so  they would have a visual image to take away with them as our small window of time together closed. Funny, the visual image I landed on isn't visual in a literal sense, yet figurative as it may be this image can be and should be as clear as the air we breathe. Here we go!
     Air, can you see air? We can see the impact of wind, but really if someone asked you what air looks like you would probably think they were a little bit loony. If we can't see it then how can we prove that air really exists? As one of UH's best put it, "You can breathe it in." which was exactly what I was hoping to get as a answer. The air we depend on, the air we take in almost unconsciously, is always there we just take it for granted. Once we established that we may not be able to see air, but we definitely proved it exists, I asked my "Fellow Christian Athletes" to take part in a little contest. I had the students take in a deep, deep breath and we were going to see who could hold their breath the longest. As expected they about all beat me, but as the contest prolonged it became harder and harder to hold in their "air". Finally, I along with some of the other participants in my little contest allowed their lungs to expel their hold with a burst of exhaled air. I had just set the stage for my object lesson in this message.
      We can't see air just like we can't "see" God. We take air into our body and it flows through our lungs into our veins and eventually makes its way to our heart. In much the same way, we breathe God into our lives and He flows throughout our body, mind, and soul. Ultimately, He lands in our heart and is pumped out through the intricate network of thoughts, instincts, and plans that we create. And then just like the deep breath of clean air that we take in, we exhale and share the air we took in with the world that we live in. Quite the visual for something that at first glance appears to be invisible. We know air exists because as we breathe it, the deeper the breath the more space it fills in our lungs, to the point that we can't hold it in very long because our lungs feel like they will pop if we don't exhale. Picture the type of exhaled breath like mine on my fifty-sixth birthday with all of those candles being extinguished, tsunami style!
      This is the same experience with God. When we take Him into our life, we breathe in, deep and long, but just as in the experience of holding our breath, at some point we exhale. In our walk with God that exhale should be just as animated as the visual you created of me blowing out the wildfire set on top of my birthday cake! What we breathe out should make an impact on those we live and interact with each day. The world you live in should feel the force of your exhale as you share what God gave to you when you made the conscious decision to breathe Him into your life. Jesus commanded His disciples to go out and tell everyone about Him and the precious gift of eternal life that he offers. Matthew 28:16-20. That charge still exists for you and I today, exhale. But, you are not alone. Just as the air we breathe is readily available and always present the same is true with God. In Exodus 33:14 God proclaims "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest".
Breathe in deep and exhale hard!
Coach Carter