Just Breathe (video)

In the hustle and bustle of life, we sell ourselves short when we don’t take the time to breathe, be still, spend time with Jesus, and listen to what He has to say.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11: 28-30

Just Breathe – Time With God

Modified Transcript:

Hi, it’s Kimberly from Well Christian Woman.

I want to take a couple of minutes and share with you a song that really resonated with me when I first heard it.

It’s called “Just Breathe” (by Johnny Diaz) and it describes the chaos of life, that Go…Go…Go, striving for too many things, trying to get this done and that done, rushing from place to place and never being able to keep up or keep your head above water. I felt like every line in the song described my life perfectly up until a few months ago.

I was running a busy medical practice and we have three small children with all that that involves… then there was trying to help out with committees and whatever else it is you’re doing that just fills your time so you wonder which ball you’re going to drop because you’re trying to juggle so many.

I remember one day standing in the kitchen trying to make supper. If your house is anything like ours, supper time is a time of extra chaos, the kids are all home and they’re hungry, you’re trying to get supper ready, and somehow through the din of all of that I heard the radio host make this statement:

“If you’re not spending time with God each day then you’re not fulfilling his will for your life.”

I’m sure I heard this before in countless ways, but there was something about it that day. I remember stopping and thinking about it, and it really was a turning point for me. I kept thinking about this in relation to what my life looked like.

We had started talking about how we could make real changes to our life. We ended up closing my medical practice and I started doing locums where they were needed and smaller bits of work, really trying to change the focus in life and just breathe, slow it down, focus on things that are more important… family, and what you’re doing for the kingdom.

I don’t know about you but I think we’ve all had those seasons in life where it just gets out of control and it’s so hard to slow down. It’s not even that what you’re doing is bad. A lot of it is great stuff… your work that’s needed to support your family, spending time with your family, doing activities with your kids, volunteering… that’s good stuff, it’s great stuff a lot of the time… but it can be too much stuff.

When it’s too much you just can’t “be”. You’re not listening to God, you’re not focusing at all on His will and what He wants because your days are just too full.  When they get too full, they just become busy busy busy. They become about you and you’re not really seeing anything else, or at least that’s how it was for me.

I don’t think I even realized it until I started to slow down a little bit and fill my lungs differently… fill my lungs with more of God instead of all the busy-ness that had really taken over.

Jesus speaks to this. He talks about it in Mathew 11: 28-30. He says:

“Come to me all who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my Yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11: 28-30

That’s really what He would have for us. He wants us to focus our days around Him. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have all the responsibilities and the fun things and all the things that we’re doing. However, if we centre ourselves with those thoughts, that God needs to come first and really should be that central point to our lives, then we’ll end up slowing down a lot of the stuff that happens around us.

Maybe slow down some of the unnecessary stuff, maybe some of the really good stuff has to go in order to make time for better stuff. That is my favourite line of this song, Just Breathe. It talks about laying down what’s good and trading it for what’s best.

That’s my prayer for all of us today. That we can really think about this idea and as we’re making decisions or doing things. That we really think about maybe even trading or laying down something that’s good for something that’s best!

Listen to the song below. It’s worth it. Please comment below to let me know your experiences or struggles with taking the time to ‘just breathe’ and ‘just be’.