This is the air I breathe....

This is the air I breathe This is the air I breathe Your holy presence living in me And I, I'm desperate for you And I, I'm lost without you This is the air I breathe.  


I've thought about writing this blog many many times...I've started writing it, stopped, started and rewrote it a few times now.  Each time praying and asking what God wants to say to you....to me.  This song Breathe...so significant in my life and I guess I hadn't even realized that until just recently.  An old song...not modern...it's not Hillsong or Kari Jobe or Jesus Culture or Desperation Band.  It's a simple song from Vineyard.  Yet, doesn't God often times speak to us in the simplicity of something unexpected?  This song was overplayed to the point I was sick of it when I was on tour in the 90's, but just like with much music, a feeling from the repetitiveness is evoked later from hearing such a familiar song from a season of your life.  Often a reminder of something forgotten or just misplaced along the way.  I came home from tour and led worship with a guy who taught me a lot of what I know about worship (that it really has nothing to do with the song itself but rather it is the heart behind the music that God is after) and he would sing this song over and over again until people would get that concept...until I would get that concept.

Funny how sometimes you get lost along the way, forget what you are meant to do or just lose momentum in moving towards your goal.  Sometimes, you get derailed by a series of events....but sometimes those same horrible events are what bring you back to what your heart and passion were to begin with.  Does that make sense?  It hadn't made sense to me until recently.  We all have hopes and dreams, passions that motivate us and move us from one season of our lives to the next.  But then there are things God deposits into our hearts very early on in our lives that become re occuring themes in our lives.  At times, you may run from them, curse them, hate them, feel like you are not worthy or adequate enough for them....but there they are...those things that make you want to tear your hair out, pound your fist on the table, scream at the top of your lungs type of things that God just drops into your heart that you know you will ALWAYS have to do....always walk in (even when you try not to or even when life becomes mundane and it gets put on the shelf for a while)...you always end up going back to that...because it is comfort to you (even while being stressful or consuming) you do it because you know you were just created to walk out that dream, that passion, that drive.  It's those things that nobody can judge, second guess (or I guess they could and do but it doesn't matter because God called you to that gift and calling), nobody can define it for you and that passion, dream, calling (or whatever you want to call it) cannot be put in a box or even a specific time or place in your life....it just follows you from season to season.  

I love how God does that for you, for me!  We all have those things put in us that pushes us in the direction where God wants to use us most!  It may evolve or maybe God moves you to the next part or adds to it another facet of the dream but He is always faithful to continue to work through you in that area no matter what happens He always opens more doors for you to walk out your gifts and callings!  I am so thankful that He alone is God and gives me purpose...gives you purpose....that He alone lets us know when it's time to take a "break", that it is, in fact, alright to take a "break" and that we are not serving people with our heart, gifts, passions and callings but we are serving Him and after we fill up, He renews our heart, gives us a new and fresh dose of strength and opens a few new doors along the way to the next step.

A few weeks ago we were at a familiar church that I knew several people at I just wanted to slip in after worship started so I wouldn't be seen and was hoping to slip out before it ended so I wouldn't need to talk to anyone (I hadn't been up for much conversation before that because I had been kind of discouraged). By the end of the service, their worship leader came up and just played something as there was an altar call...the lights were dim and the message spoke volumes to me. I held back tears because for the month prior to that Sunday, I had purposely not listened to worship music (which was a very long time for me) for 2 reasons...One. All that music reminded me of was how I had regained a heart, a dream a passion that had been intensified over the last few years in the midst of loss (ironic timing or not) after my heart for worship had been dulled down for a long time before that...a passion that had become so strong during this time of loss that it was often the very thing carrying me through everything...it was my communication with God for my daily strength...these last 3 years had changed my heart for worship forever but I couldn't see the plan in the midst of my life right now....so I was mad (so listening to any worship made me more mad)...and secondly, because I wanted to not have to get to the heart of some bigger matters and I know worship is the only time when God really REALLY speaks to me so, as horrible as it sounds, I just didn't want to hear Him speak to me about something that I knew needed to be addressed. So, I stood there with my arms crossed and was ready to leave as the worship leader sat down at the piano and played the first chord of a very VERY familiar song in my life….Breathe....this is the song God has used more times than I can count to get my attention when I am frustrated at what I see in the natural...every time I've laid something big down in my life He always gives me clarity in my purpose through this song...

This is the air I breathe This is the air I breathe Your holy presence living in me And I, I'm desperate for you And I, I'm lost without you This is the air I breathe.  

I just stood there trying not to listen while fighting back tears but finally the tears came streaming down my face.  Throughout the course of the last 15 years, God would sometimes gently and sometimes not so gently remind me of the fact that we are called to worship Him and Him alone and this passion for music and more importantly worship, is a part of every fiber of my being....and God knows I've tried to run from it, second guess it, say I'm horrible at it but as God has used this song over and over in my life every time He wants to get my attention that we are called to worship a very holy God! I stand in awe of how involved His is in my life to use the same song over and over again to do it.  I AM desperate for Him and I truly AM lost without Him and I can get mad, stomp my feet, get down right pissed off and angry but once I am done being a brat...He is there, again, with open arms waiting to speak to me that not all is lost and that He will in fact use every detail, every event, every moment and everything in my life to speak through me to reach other people and show His love.  He will build on your heart and my heart, this passion to reach other people and possibly give them a very real hope, that in the midst of every trial, God can and will be glorified if you let Him, and that through your pain or disappointment God can breath new life into a broken heart and use your, my, heart and passions for His eternal Kingdom!

I just cried so hard because the God of the universe loves ME enough (Oh, How He Loves Me) to choose the same familiar song to break through my broken stubborn heart...He spoke to me that the gifts and callings He deposits in our hearts are irreversible and they will find me again and again…they can't be taken away and He will go to any length to remind me of what my heart and passions are, over and over and over again and that it is not defined by a place or person, it is defined by Him alone and He chooses what I do with my life and in what season I do it and where I do it at and He will add to it! How comforting that we can not out run God and that He is that personal in our lives to quietly remind us that He is here for us, He loves us and won't let us go and definitely won't let our passions be snuffed out because He has a plan to use all of us and all of our lives!  I hope you didn't think I would give up after 3 years....a forgotten passion was just re ignited over these past few years and now God has chosen to use it somewhere else and in a different way that's all!  Just likes He wants to do in all of us....let God direct your path...nobody can do it quite like Him...so be desperate for Him and He alone will lead you.