Problem No 2: The Inability to Breathe

Symptoms and Cause

In most cases this is most likely to be connected to the previous problem of the heart malfunctioning – causing breathlessness and gasping for breath, but other problems may have a contribution toward the problem.

Breathlessness and gasping for breath can also be caused by:

·          Problems with the respiratory system

·          Obesity,

·          Problems with the circulatory system,

·          Anemia. 

In the case of the church, the air we breathe is the breath of God, the Holy Spirit.  There is more than enough available so why is the church having a problem with breathing?  It maybe, that there is a problem with the spiritual lungs.   

The lungs are amazing, air enters the body through the nose or mouth passes down the trachea, and passes through a seeming endless maze of increasingly smaller tubes until it finally reaches clusters of tiny sacs, called alveoli.  They are extremely small and it is estimated there are 300 million per lung and this is where the exchange of gas takes place – oxygen into the blood, and the carbon dioxide is passed back into the lung in order to exhale it.  In the medical world there may be many diseases, bacteria, viruses and cancers that affect the function of the lungs, and obviously when serious can be life threatening. 

In the spiritual realm the inability to breathe in the breath of life will mean that  The Holy Spirit and his power is unable to reach every part of His Church, but the fault is not with him, but with us.   Gradually the passages or ways which the Holy Spirit has come into his church have been closed down through lack of use, or been polluted by other things, so that breathlessness or the inability to take in the breath of God’s spirit resembles spiritual asthma.  Unfortunately so many Christians and churches seem to have got so used to the inability to breath deeply that they have adapted, and manage to survive, just about, with minimal inconvenience, so that the problem is almost unrecognizable. 

    

Local church fellowships vary worldwide – for some the Holy Spirit is free to work in the hearts and lives of his people with great effect, but for others the Holy Spirit is given a once a year glance on the day of Pentecost, other than that he rarely gets a mention.  The fact that without him not one of us would be saved seems to evade such fellowships.  As I was growing up I was taught that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were just for the early church, and after that there was no longer a need for the gifts.  I’m not sure where the Holy Spirit featured, as he was definitely accepted as part of the Trinity, but his work and existence seemed to be a mystery.  I am not sure whether what  I grew up believing was the intentional teaching of the church or not, but it wasn’t until after I left home that I truly began to understand the vital importance of the Holy Spirit in the daily life of individual Christians and in the life of every local church  fellowship.   Unfortunately there are still local churches, fellowships and groups of Christians who still share the questionable theories of my youth, so it is hardly surprising that the Body of Christ is gasping for breath in many areas of the world – they are denying and ignoring their main source of life.

Jesus said “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.                                                                                                                                              John 7:37 – 39

For many the experience of the Holy Spirit is a dry well and a thirsty soul and never being able to take long deep breaths to fill the soul and draw near to the Spirit of life, no doubt another reason for the “spring and summer fixes”.  Some go to these oases of refreshment knowing that the folk back home don’t approve, but their gasping breaths, and their hunger and thirst for more bring them to the watering holes where they have found help and sustenance in the past, but in returning to normal life, their local church, which should be a regular source of help and refreshing has resulted in shortness of breath and gasping for spiritual air, and a heart that beats erratically.