Breathing is simple-for some

Suffocated by the Past 

“All I wanted was a good set of lungs and the air to fill them with.”

Leif Enger

   Over 80 forest fires have scorched Washington state during our annual fire season. Our little valley is filled with a haze of smoke, and the sun glows eerily in the sky like a dying coal over our farm. I stand with my hands on my hips, talking to my sister and feeling the smoke fill my lungs.

   Ok, concentrate. Breathe in and breathe out. I tell myself, trying to focus on the conversation, but I start to cough.

   I hate this powerless feeling of an asthma attack, like a massive invisible hand slowly closing and squeezing my lungs. 
   My childhood years were free of asthma, but I developed it during my sophomore year of college after a month of walking phenomena. (Not everybody is born with asthma; it can be developed later in life, especially among women.) Even though I recovered from that grueling semester, my lungs didn’t.

   I have been told that traditional Chinese medicine says sick lungs is grief affecting the body physically. I don’t know if I believe that grief causes lung disease, but it does help me make the correlation between asthma and the point of this post.

   Often, Christians are saved from horrible circumstances and broken hearts. Even though Jesus saved them and forgave their sins, they are plagued with regrets and memories of their past. A tendril of a memory drifts past, and they let sorrow and guilt fill them. Satan constricts them with their past, bringing them to their knees. They are suffocated by the vapors of their past brokenness, and they cannot breathe.

   But Jesus promised us the gift of life. He promised that we would be free of the sadness of our past. Why do we allow Satan to bring us to our knees? Don’t we know that there is no condemnation with our sweet Savior? But I know the helpless fear of crouching to the ground, struggling for the simplest of God’s gifts—air.

   You need to remember that God has given you the power to shake off this guilt. When I can’t breathe, all I need is my inhaler. I can’t breathe on my own, but if I use my inhaler (I hate to use it) I will be able to breathe. God has also given us a spiritual inhaler in the form of His word. He gave us many precious promises of His Word to chase away the suffocating presence of guilt. You need to look up the promises for yourself, but here is a small list of verses to loosen your spiritual lungs.

Remember that Jesus heals the people with pasts.

·         Psalm 147:3—He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.

Remember that we all have broken pasts. We wouldn’t need salvation otherwise.

·         Romans 3:23—For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

And finally, remember that Jesus gives us victory over the past and promises a new future.

·         II Corinthians 5:17—Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.