A Waste Of Breath

Dear Friends,

This morning my Bible reading took me to Psalm 150:6, which says, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” It’s a familiar passage for me, and even the text for one of my favorite worship songs. But this morning, the phrase got me thinking about all the different ways I use my breath. For example, the most obvious way is breathing. But it also occurred to me that I use my breath every time I open my mouth to speak - it’s my breath passing over my vocal chords that helps form the words that then come out of my mouth.

It was a bit of a new take on the act of breathing for me. As I pondered this revelation, I realized that I waste my breath a lot. Here’s what I mean - all too often, I use my breath to complain, or to grumble, or to speak with sarcasm or cynicism, or to gossip. And when I do that, I'm not praising God.

Psalm 150:6 tells us we need to use our breath to “praise the Lord”, which means that whenever we do something other than praising God with our words, we’re truly wasting out breath. And since every breath is something that's valuable and precious to us (as in, it gives us life), we should probably be more concerned about how much we waste it.

So today, let’s ask God to help us use this valuable gift wisely. Let’s ask Him to help us use our breath to speak words of comfort - to encourage others to see God - to sing praises to God - and to lift up prayers to our Savior.

Amen?

Daniel