# The breath of God Day 5 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. ### Opening Prayer: *O Loving God, who breathed me into being, breathe your Divine Breath in me again this day—that I might be filled with your life and guided by the winds of your Spirit. For the sake of your Son. Amen. (JLB)* #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 104 #### O Lord My God, You Are Very Great *104 Bless the Lord, O my soul!O Lord my God, you are very great!You are clothed with splendor and majesty,2 covering yourself with light as with a garment,stretching out the heavens like a tent.3 He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters;he makes the clouds his chariot;he rides on the wings of the wind;4 he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire.* *5 He set the earth on its foundations,so that it should never be moved.6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.7 At your rebuke they fled;at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.8 The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them.9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.* *10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills;11 they give drink to every beast of the field;the wild donkeys quench their thirst.12 Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell;they sing among the branches.13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains;the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.* *14 You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate,that he may bring forth food from the earth15 and wine to gladden the heart of man,oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart.* *16 The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.17 In them the birds build their nests;the stork has her home in the fir trees.18 The high mountains are for the wild goats;the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers.* *19 He made the moon to mark the seasons;[a] the sun knows its time for setting.20 You make darkness, and it is night,when all the beasts of the forest creep about.21 The young lions roar for their prey,seeking their food from God.22 When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens.23 Man goes out to his workand to his labor until the evening.* *24 O Lord, how manifold are your works!In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.25 Here is the sea, great and wide,which teems with creatures innumerable,living things both small and great.26 There go the ships,and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.[b]27 These all look to you,to give them their food in due season.* *28 When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.30 When you send forth your Spirit,[c] they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.* *31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works,32 who looks on the earth and it trembles,who touches the mountains and they smoke!33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;I will sing praise to my God while I have being.34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more!Bless the Lord, O my soul!Praise the Lord!* #### The Lord's Faithless Bride *16 Again the word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, 3 and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. 4 And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. 5 No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.* *6 “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ 7 I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.* *8 “When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine. 9 Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. 10 I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk.[a] 11 And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. 12 And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. 13 Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. 14 And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God.* #### Scripture for the Day: John 14:15-21 #### Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit *15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper,[a] to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be[b] in you.* *18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”* #### Reading for Reflection: *At this point you may be wondering, What about God’s role in spiritual growth? After all, the Bible speaks of transformation as the work of God. It’s always a miracle when it happens. To speak of spiritual growth only as a product of training could make it sound like something we can engineer. Anytime a frog is turned into a prince—or even just a gentler, kinder frog—there is always something mysterious and awesome at work. In spiritual growth that “something mysterious” is the work of the Spirit. So another analogy from scripture is helpful. “The wind blows where it chooses,” Jesus said, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”* ​ *Consider the difference between piloting a motorboat or a sailboat. We can run a motorboat all by ourselves. We can fill the tank and start the engine. We are in control. But a sailboat is a different story. We can hoist the sails and steer the rudder, but we are utterly dependent upon the wind. The wind does the work. If the wind doesn’t blow—and sometimes it doesn’t—we sit still in the water no matter how frantic we act. Our task is to do whatever enables us to catch the wind.* ​ *Spiritual transformation is that way. We may be aggressively pursuing it, but we cannot turn it on and off. We can open ourselves to transformation through certain practices, but we cannot engineer it. We can take no credit for it.* ​ *It is profitable to see this. This truth saves us from pride and misdirected effort. Fist-clenching, teeth-gritting exertion is usually not productive. Indeed, feeling a constant sense of strain or burden probably indicates that we are off course. Jesus offered his yoke—his way of life—to tired people because he said his way of life involved ease and lightness and “rest for your souls.” This theme is echoed by many of his followers. Frank Laubach writes, “The sense of being led by an unseen hand which takes mine…grows upon me daily. I do not need to strain at all to find opportunity…strain does not seem to do good.”* ​ *Another analogy from sailing concerns the fact that wise sailors know that their main task is being able to “read” the wind—to practice discernment. An experienced sailor can simply look at the lake and tell where the wind is blowing strongest, or look at the sky and give a weather forecast. A wise sailor knows when to raise and lower which sails to catch the wind most effectively.* ​ *Spiritual growth requires discernment. We must learn to respond to the fresh wind of the Spirit. Moses didn’t ask or arrange for the burning bush. But once it was there, he had to make a choice: whether to turn aside and pay attention to the work of God.* ​ *God’s responsibility is to provide the burning bush. Our responsibility is to turn aside. Often I forget this.* ​ *Sometime ago I bought a devotional book and set a goal of finishing it by the end of the year. Several times as I read, it was clear that something was happening in my heart; I felt I should stop and study a certain passage for a while. But such delays would have kept me from my goal of finishing the book. So I kept going.* ​ *I should have realized that getting through the book “on time” was not, as I thought, the way to demonstrate* *my devotion. The purpose was to put myself in a place where transformation could happen. If God should speak to me through one passage—if I am being convicted or healed or challenged—them my role is to stay there until the wind dies down. Then it’s time to move on. I was motorboating instead of sailing. I failed to turn aside.* ​ *Take another example. A friend of mine was at a retreat center recently where a group of people were spending a day in the practice of silence. One of them, not watching where she was walking, bumped into my friend and nearly knocked her over. But because the woman was engaged in silence, she didn’t say a word, not even a simple “Excuse me.” Yet, the whole purpose of practicing silence is not to see how long we can go without speaking; the goal is to make space for Jesus in our lives so we learn to live like him. Living like him in* *part involves responding with grace and civility when we bump into people.* ​ *Our primary task is not to calculate how many verses of Scripture we read or how many minutes we spend in prayer. Our task is to use these activities to create opportunities for God to work. Then what happens is up to him. We just put up the sails: The wind blows where it chooses…” (The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg)* #### Reflection and Listening: silent and written #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: Wind of God *Spirit, come, like a mighty wind;* *Raise these bones back to life again.* *Lift us up from this desert land;* *Breathe upon us and we will stand.* *Come and blow, Wind of God;* *Blow, Wind of God* *Lead us out of our wilderness;* *Be our Savior, our hope, and rest.* *All our idols have turned to dust;* *You alone can deliver us.* *Wind of God, come and blow;* *Holy Spirit, let your power flow.* *Stir our hearts, Breath of Life;* *Speak your Word, and we will rise.* *Come, revive, come, restore;* *We can't live without you, Lord.* *Come and blow, come and blow,* *Wind of God* ### Closing Prayer: *Father, you alone know what lies before me this day, grant that in every hour of it I may stay close to you. Let me today embark on no undertaking that is not in line with your will for my life, nor shrink from any sacrifice which your will may demand. Suggest, direct, control every movement of my mind; for my Lord Christ’s sake. Amen. (A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie)*