Words for 2011

"I want to blow out peace!"
"I want to blow out hope!"
"I want to blow out love!"
"Uh -uh- uh-uh -- HOT!"

These were the words we heard several times these past few weeks as we sat around our lighted Advent wreath after dinner.

(Explanation #1:  Hope, peace, joy and love are what each of our four candles stood for.)  (Explanation # 2:  The 4th speaker above was Milo, who was saying he wanted to blow out the "hot" joy candle.)

The words struck me as funny at first.... but then they suddenly seemed powerful.  Wouldn't those be wonderful goals for our speech this year -- to "blow out" peace, hope, love, and joy with the words that we speak?  And so, by the power of the Motherly Mandate (with the Fatherly Approval, of course), those ARE our new goals for 2011.

Pete and Strider heard a song by Jason Gray at the Behold the Lamb concert that talked about breath, and how we can worship God with our breath.  As I was thinking about how we could go about using our breath to blow out peace, love, joy and hope, I started thinking about how we would need the Spirit's power to do this -- as those things are the "fruit" of Him (Gal 5:22) and come from/through Him.

 And then I remembered something cool:  in both Hebrew and Greek, the words for "Spirit" used in the Bible are sometimes translated as "breath."  In the New Testament, the word is "pneuma" (where we get "pneumonia" from I'm guessing!), and most of the time it's translated as "Spirit."  But it's also the word in places like 2 Thessalonians 2:8, when Paul talks about the "breath of the Lord Jesus."  It's also related to a word translated as "blows" (John 3:8) or "blowing"  (John 6:18).

So we have started praying that this year we would depend on the Breath of God to give us breath that blows out peace, love, joy and hope to those around us.  When I think about how I usually speak/breathe, this seems awfully impossible...    But with the Great Breath of God, nothing is, of course! 

So may we breathe out as He does (and may no one get pneumonia!).

"As for me, this is my covenant with them," says the Lord.  My Spirit (Breath) who is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of their descendents from this time on and forever."  -- Isaiah 59:21