Make Prayer Your Breath and Breath Your Prayer
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Amazing actually. But maybe a bit too much like a slogan rather than the real thing. But if you are skeptical, hold that thought for a minute or two. I think I can demonstrate how you really can make prayer your breath and breath your prayer.
When I say prayer, I don’t mean only traditional acts of prayer such as reciting the Lord’s Prayer or the kind of prayer you might hear in church or even at the dinner table. Instead, I mean an awareness of God and a communion with Him at that moment in time.
It could be what we traditionally mean by prayer, but it could be much more. The voicing of direct thoughts from you to God. Thinking about God and the many blessings you’ve received. Maybe it’s a deep session of reading and considering a Psalm such as Psalm 23. So, by prayer, I mean communion with God, praying, thinking, singing Christian songs, reading the Bible deeply and thoroughly.
Take a breath…
I have it on good authority that you are breathing right now. And I suspect you had not given it a thought until I mentioned breath.
That’s because we breathe naturally and habitually. Can we do this for prayer? That is, can we make prayer an integral part of our everyday life?
We may not ever get to the point where it is automatic like breathing, but we can move in that direction. To start, we have to pay attention to breathing and prayer. So just ask yourself this:
can I make prayer my breath?
I’ve been connecting breath and prayer for a while now and it works…some of the time. Like you, I can get distracted and caught up in the world so that my breathing becomes unconscious and my prayer non-existent. However, now that I’m connecting prayer and breathing, I pray more frequently and I breathe better too.
I’m not talking about repeating a short prayer like a mantra or some kind of magical incantation. Instead, I’m suggesting that we can draw near to God. We can be closer to him through prayer and through making prayer an important part of our lives. The breath of life comes from God, so by using that turning to him as we breathe, we connect with him more deeply.
Here is a beautiful passage from the Bible that expresses this thought:
Philippians 4:6-7 NIV
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 NIV
From passages like the one above from Philippians, I understood the concept of taking our requests to God in prayer.
Later I started making the connection between praying and breathing after I read a short passage from the late evangelist and Christian author, Oswald Chambers:
The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts. Our blood flows and our breathing continues “without ceasing”; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops.
Oswald chambers, my utmost for his highest (may 26)
The first gulp of air felt mighty good
My wife and I went to the beach a while back. Because we live in Hawaii, you might think we go to the beach all the time, but we don’t. Anyway, at one point I dove under the water and swam as long as I could. When I surfaced, that first gulp of air felt mighty good.
I’m not at the level where my prayers work just like breathing. I can still go for hours without praying. Yet that first moment of prayer after a few hours feels mighty good. It’s not quite the same as air, but still good.
My goal is to make my prayer more natural. It goes something like this. Breathe…think of God…Breathe…be grateful for that breath…Breathe…get distracted by a weird thought…Breathe…get back to God…Breathe…seek closeness with Him…Breathe…get distracted by a bird…Breathe…pray for more of the Holy Spirit…Breathe…
Earlier I asked that you to hold your skepticism for a minute or two. I won’t try to persuade you to link prayer and breath, but I hope you do. What do you think?
Yours in Christ, Kurt
See Taking Off
Absolutely.
I was cautious about taking this path mostly because of the association of “breath work” with yoga and New Age. I am very cautious about the incursion of any kind of sincretism into my walk w Christ.
At the same time I enjoy the meditative state that comes with mindful breathing. “Mindful” too, another word tainted by association w “spirituality,” as in “No I’m not a Christian but I am spiritual.” A certifiable path to Hell.
So early on I was breathing and praying about what I doing, asking if it was OK.
Was I, as some propose, opening myself to dark forces with prayerful breathing. To guard against the dire possibility I sought to fill every part of me with his Name. Everything from the Shma to the Doxology and every Bible verse I could muster in between. When I had finished I still wondered if what I was doing could pass muster with the heavenly OSHA. A brief dialog ensued:
Voice 1: I don’t know about this. It makes me nervous.
Voice 2: Well, you seem to enjoy it.
Voice1: I do. But I’m nervous about anything getting between me and my Lord.
Voice 2: Did that happen?
Voice 1: Just the opposite.
Voice 2: Sort of like what David said: “I will keep the Lord always before me. With Him at my right hand I will never be afraid.”
Voice 1: I said that verse while I was praying!
Voice 2: That’s a good one to keep in mind.
Look, what does He want from you.
Voice 1: (thinking for a moment) I have been wondering about that very thing. What stuck with me was the verse in Isaiah where it says that He spreads the heavens over us like the canvas of a tent for us to live in. And He is spreading it out so it sounds like He’s inside the tent.
Voice 2: So…camping?
Voice 1: Very funny. It’s a biggish tent so if you don’t like camping there’s room for hotels if you want. Or a cruise or Rome…or whatever. Forget the tent. What I’m saying is He made this incredibly elaborate universe to produce us, the only thing we know of that is conscious of Him.
Voice 2: He wants to commune with you.
Voice 1: Yeah.
Voice 2: And you do that more with the prayer breathing thing.
Voice 1: Yeah, but I worry about…
Voice 2: …keeping Him always before you?
Voice 1: I do that. It makes it easier to do that.
Voice 2: Sounds like your good to go. I mean…breath. You were mud before he breathed into you.
Oh, check this out. Breath is one thing, right? But it has 3 parts. In, out and the little pause in between. Each part is distinct yet without all three none of them can exist. Almost like he put a metaphor for the Holy Trinity at the center of our being.
Very nice my brother. So far, in the brief history of this blog, you’ve won the longest comment sweepstakes.