“Breathe, Mrs. Crum. Breathe.”
“Well, okay,” I remember thinking. “Sounds like a good idea.”
So I took a breath.
And then, as my brain cells slowly clicked on, it occurred to me, “Why’s somebody telling me to breathe? No one should have to tell me to do that.”
I was struggling to climb out of a deep, foggy, post-surgical anesthesia pit and life had suddenly been reduced to one simple task: taking another breath.
Not, “Go here or there. Meet this need. Fulfill this obligation. Jump through this hoop. Fix this. Organize that.”
Just … breathe.
Apparently, I was a wee bit “overcooked” on anesthetics. Too much of me went too much to sleep for too long and what should have been a one-hour stay in the recovery room turned into five.
Five hours, as I recall, of pokes and shakes and reminders to breathe because, as the nurse explained, I kept drifting back to sleep and forgetting to do that most basic, needful thing.
How could I forget to breathe? Nobody ever has to remind me to breathe. Or eat. I do those things automatically.
But I’ve now learned that when my autopilot malfunctions, those basic things quickly jump to the top of my stack of priorities and nothing else matters.
After all, if I’m not breathing, the rest of my to-do list is pretty meaningless.
It’s good to occasionally be stopped in my tracks like that, to be forced back to the most basic of basics. It makes me thankful for things I usually take for granted, and it forces me to consider how much of my life I may be numbly living on autopilot.
It reminds me not to skim along the surface of life, putting off important decisions, neglecting relationships, and avoiding weighty issues until “someday” when life isn’t so busy with responsibilities, diversions, deadlines and possessions.
Sadly, deciding what we believe about God, for many, becomes one of those shelved “someday” issues.
Our world says faith is irrelevant and inconsequential, an optional crutch for weaklings and old people. In reality, it’s more important than our next breath.
What we believe about God, in fact, is the most important thing about us. It should not only define and determine everything about how we live our daily lives here and now, but it will also determine where and how we live for eternity.
And yet, so many seem not to give God any serious thought until the superfluous layers of their complicated lives are violently peeled away by sudden tragedy.
Every day, people awake on normal mornings never imagining that just staying alive is going to suddenly become their biggest priority.
People like those who routinely went to work at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., or the World Trade Center in New York City. Or those who went shopping on a recent Saturday in a mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
Ours is not a safe world that affords us the luxury of cruising on spiritual autopilot. I’m not recommending fear and paranoia—in fact, the Bible expressly instructs us not to walk in fear—but I am saying we need to examine what we believe and why.
Pretending it’s unimportant doesn’t make it unimportant.
Whether we’ve paid Him much attention or not, we’ll one day be accountable to God for what we believe about Him and what we’ve done with His offer of relationship and salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.
When that day comes—and it can come suddenly—nothing else will matter. Not our possessions, positions, accomplishments or excuses. Not even our next breath. Just God and our relationship with Him.
Joshua’s challenge to the Hebrews still applies today: “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.” (Joshua 24:15)
It’s worth thinking about. Not someday, but now.