I know it’s July, which means we’re halfway through 2024, but I had been taking a break from socials and pretty much everything associated with the internet. Yet life carried on, and like every year (outside of 2023, ironically), I sought the Lord and asked for a word for the year. After prayer, pondering, and thought, BREATH(E) hit me. I thought it might be encouraging to share here. So here you go, my one word for 2024, which will be something that carries on past 2024 for sure.
I hate running (yet I do it). It has always seemed a bit masochistic. Just the thought of running long distances for fun still feels so foreign to me.
I prefer sprinting. But you can’t sprint nonstop.
As I look back at 2023 and much of my life, I’ve done my damnedest to sprint nonstop. I’ve had little to no room to breathe; I’ve been short of breath.
I couldn’t breathe.
I often felt like my lungs were being squeezed, and I was in a panic for a deep breath.
In 2024, I’m asking for God to breathe the breath of life into my soul, heart, dreams, and my very being after a season, and year, that was marked by endings, and to a degree death. (Job 33:4, Isaiah 42:5, Acts 17:25)
Lord, as you formed Adam from the dust and breathed the breath of life into his lungs, I pray you sculpt from the dust of my dreams and life that is left a new dream and a new vision, then Lord blow breath into it. Bring new life. (Gen. 2:7)
There were moments in 2023 where it was a win to get out of bed; the dreams that died left me paralyzed, and I felt like dry bones left. So “breathe” for me is also a one-word prayer, asking the Spirit to blow his breath into what feels like the dead bones of my soul and dreams, bringing life and hope, that even though I feel slain, there indeed will be life from this. (Ezekiel 37:9-10)
Breath(e) symbolizes space. Space for the fire to burn and grow. For too long I didn’t have space for the fire to burn and for sure not grow. I just shoved more kindling into the space, leaving the fire no space to breathe. Lord, let the fire in me grow, now that I have space. Space to breathe. Space to hear. Space to dream. Space to give my family a fully present dad and husband. Breath is space.
I sit in the space I have now, and John’s words come to mind when Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” I have the space to sit and hear you, Jesus, like never before. The space to receive a fresh breath of the Holy Spirit. (John 20:21–22)
Here I am.
I await your breath.
As I read in the Bible, I see lots of contrasting last breaths. I ask myself, “What would I want my last breath to be?”
This might be a word for 2024, but it’s a declaration for the next chapter of life and until that last breath, that I would live and breathe differently than the first 40 years. May my next 40 or so years, Lord-willing, be different because of this year’s one word of BREATH(E). (Gen. 25:8, John 19:30; contrast to a poor last breath – Acts 5:5 & 10, Acts 12:23)