Life

Every time we inhale, we breath in divine wisdom, spark holy imagination, and enter a rhythm of love that moves with the Spirit of God.

As I was looking over the text for today, I thought of an old friend, Nick Spooner, my first partner in Adverting.

Nick was an out of the box kind of thinker.  But his most creative work wasn’t at the office, but in his garage, where he’d spend a lot of late nights sculpting these weird, playful characters out of plasticine.

He had hundreds of them in some stage of completion. This was how Nick freed his imagination, and let his mind wonder and play—giving life to something that didn’t exist before.

​If you’ve been journeying with us through the 8 Sacred Moves, you might see where this is going. In both creation stories, there’s a kind of divine playfulness at work—dust and breath, form and spirit.

I imagine God —like Nick in his studio—shaping and reshaping, smiling and loving creation into being. Including each and every one of us.
​
 Now to recap, Genesis begins with God’s Spirit hovering over the chaos. Then God speaks and order appears. In the first three days, God shapes the space into land, seas, sky. And then on days four through six, God fills that space with stuff, like plants, animals, and us.

​Which brings us to the fifth sacred movement of creation: Life as we know it.

. . . . then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.  And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.                                                                                                                                                                                        Genesis 2:7-9

I want to begin with a quote from Origen, one of the early church fathers, who said, “When God breathed life into humanity, that breath became reason, wisdom, and the capacity to love.”
 
I like that. It reminds me of who we are and what we’re made of.
 
Science has calculated that humans take about 20,000 breaths a day. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. From a spiritual perspective, this is the rhythm of time God sets into motion. I bring this up because breathing happens naturally, so much so we rarely give it a second thought.
 
Which is both good and bad. Good because it means we’re alive, we have a pulse, a working heartbeat. But when we stop paying attention, we miss what’s holy about it. Every time we inhale, we breath in divine wisdom, spark holy imagination, and enter a rhythm of love that moves with the Spirit of God.
 
You might remember the Hebrew word for breath is ruach. It’s a word with multiple meanings: Spirit, wind, life-force. It’s the same ruach that hovered over the waters in Genesis.

The same wind that woke up the prophets and ignited the church! The same Spirit Jesus promised would never leave us. This is God’s first breath, still swirling and creating life out of chaos.
 
More than just oxygen—it’s God’s holy, silent presence that is always with us. Which is why we want to pay attention to our breathing.

As the poet Rumi wrote: “There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.”
 
That voice speaks in the sacred pause between inhale and exhale saying, “You are no longer stardust. You are my beloved creation.”

Every breath we take is a reminder that we too are sacred, made from love for love. So what we do with our life—from our first breath to our last—matters.
 
Which takes us to Jesus, who used his life to restore ours; bringing us back into the rhythm of breathing and belonging. When he says, “I came so you can have life, and have it abundantly,” (John 10:10) he’s inviting us back to the life God imagined: A life of presence, healing, and love. The gospels are filled with stories that show us this.
 
Take the story of an unnamed woman, who’s been bleeding for twelve years (Mark 5:25-34). In that world, her condition meant more than physical suffering. She’s been labeled unclean. Untouchable. She can’t go to the market, show up to worship, be held, or experience intimacy. She’s a ghost in her own community.
 
When she hears Jesus is near, she’s so desperate to be healed that she breaks laws and traditions. Pushing through a crowd of men who have avoided her for years… just to touch the hem of his cloak. When she does—she’s healed.
 
Mark tells us that Jesus feels power leave him, and stops to look for the person everyone else tries not to see. When she comes forward, trembling, Jesus doesn’t use his breath to shame her. Instead, he says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
 
Jesus makes this public announcement, not to draw attention to himself. He does it to restore her identity and belonging. He lets the others know she has been healed so she’s no longer invisible and untouchable—and is welcomed home.
 
Because that’s what the Spirit of love does. It breathes outward—toward healing, toward connection, toward community.

Every time we exhale this Spirit, someone else is able to breathe it in. That’s the sacred rhythm of life that we often overlook. It’s not just about what God is doing, but what God is doing through us.
 
Rabbi Abraham Heschel said,“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”  

Which makes me wonder if we’re living a life worthy of blessing and holiness. Are we seizing every chance to love, heal, restore?

Life is more than just breathing. It’s using each breath to love God, love others, and serve both.
 
Jesus doesn’t ask us to admire his life—but to follow it. To walk in his rhythm. To breathe like he breathed. To live our lives as gifts that give life to others. That’s the heartbeat of the gospel. The pulse of life.
 
Jesus awakens us so we can live abundantly, faithfully, and eternally. Which means doing more than inhaling and exhaling. Showing up for church is a great start, but Jesus calls us to be the church. This requires more than just doing the bare minimum.
 
Jesus says, “You know the rule, ‘You shall not murder,’ but I’m telling you to not get angry…don’t let your heart be hardened.”

He says, “Don’t just love your neighbor—love your enemies, and pray for those who hurt you.”

It’s not just rule keeping, for Jesus. It’s about embodying the Spirit of God and making love visible, real, and attainable to everyone who wants it. The goal isn’t to out-holy each other. It’s to out-love one another.
 
Because a life that inhales God’s breath will always exhale God’s mercy, grace, and peace. Like Glen McWherter writes in his 8Moves devotional, “Compassion reflects God’s heart…Breathing in God’s love, we exhale it into others’ lives.”
 
This is what I hope you remember today: When the breath we receive becomes the words we speak, the songs we sing, the kindness we offer—our life, and the life of those around us, begins to move in rhythm with Christ.
 
And this matters because the world still tries to steal this holy breath. Fear strangles us. Anxiety chokes out hope. Shame suffocates our very being. Our systems of oppression take people’s breath away—literally. We saw that when George Floyd was murdered. And when tear-gas is fired on peaceful protesters.
 
But Jesus doesn’t take life, he gives it. He doesn’t harm, he heals and saves. And he calls us to do the same for one another.
 
To quote Origen again, “Jesus is the wisdom of God put into practice.”  As we continue to build a community of love together we’re not putting up walls and closing ourselves off. We’re building a life that looks like Jesus.
 
What my old friend Nick did with his hands—forming something beautiful and inspiring out of clay—Jesus invites us to do with our lives. To take the raw, ordinary stuff of our days and shape it into something holy and sacred. A community of breath knitted together by love; inhaling mercy and exhaling compassion so people can come alive again.
 
And this is where you come in—offering your breath, your voice, your heartbeat—as a gift of love that becomes the very air we all share.
 
Howard Thurman said it best: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

So let’s be those people. The kind who tune our attention to each breath we’re given, and use each gift to forgive generously, speak kindly, and preach the gospel with love and not just words.

Let’s exhale joy and peace—not as naïve optimism, but as sacred resistance to the hatred and anger that has infected our societies. Let’s not just live, but live abundantly. Embracing this gift we’ve been given to create joy and share love with one another.
 
Let’s take in the breath of God—and give it back as a sacred gift to the world.

Because the breath that stirred the dust in Genesis is still moving now.

Still whispering in the trees. Still filling lungs. Still animating hearts.

​Still awakening love in the space between every breath we take in and release.
 
It’s in between those two unassuming, natural responses God whispers, “You are my beloved creation. And you are made good.”


Work Cited:
Paraphrased from Origen, On First Principles, trans. G. W. Butterworth (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973), II.8.3; and Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, trans. Ronald E. Heine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982), Homily I.5.
Jalal al-Din Rumi, The Essential Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1995), 32.
Howard Thurman, The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman: A Visionary for Our Time, ed. Walter Earl Fluker (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006), 18.