Spiritually Choking? Prayer is the Answer!

June 14, 2012

Are you spiritually suffocating? Spiritual suffocation manifests itself in many ways: feeling overwhelmed, lonely, guilty, unimportant, ashamed, unsafe, worthless, stupid, left out, incompetent, lost in life, never catching up on tasks, craving a drink, needing coffee to get started, seeing the glass half empty, never getting a break, feeling unattractive, eating to soothe, being passed over, picked last, picked on. Some people feel flat out hopeless, helpless, and even suicidal. Why? Because they are not spiritually “breathing.”

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Transformational Thought

To pray is to breathe. When people are not praying, they are spiritually suffocating. They’re on life support, dying … or maybe they have never really lived. Just as the body must have oxygen, our spirit, our essence, can’t survive without prayer, without breathing in God.

His Word is our daily bread, and prayer is our daily breath.

Prayer is Opening our Hearts to God

Prayer is opening our hearts to God, who dwells within us. Praying allows us further connection and understanding of His spiritual world. As we pray, our spiritual radar starts to get tuned and tweaked to God’s frequency so we can breathe Him in and connect more powerfully with Him. The result is that we can hear Him more clearly without all of life’s clutter and interference.

With His clear guidance, life becomes easier and more fulfilling. We become more Christ-like as we know and follow Him.

Have you ever experienced that scary choking feeling when something was caught in your throat? One of the enemy’s greatest tactics is to clutter and confuse our thinking, making us believe we have much more important things to “breathe in” each day, choking out our time in prayer. Don’t be fooled.

Lighthouse Network: Helping People Struggling with Mental Health Issues and Substance Abuse Find Help & Hope Since 2003.

Try This Exercise
Today, take a moment to hold your breath as long as you can. When you feel like you can’t last another moment, breathe! The urgency and powerful way you gasp for air after a long time of being deprived represents how much you actually need God … every second of your life!

Pray deeply and breathe easily … or avoid prayer and choke fearfully. What’s it going to be?

Prayer
Dear Father, I praise and honor You, my Lord. I know You have created everything. Even though I believe in You, at times I cannot breathe. I struggle for air like a swimmer who has gone too deep. And now I am rushing to the surface to gasp for air. Today, I feel like I will not make it to the top. I am learning now that You are my only source of air, my constant source of “life.” Infuse me with Your Holy Spirit, Lord. Help me regularly dedicate time to breathe You more deeply into my heart and life. I pray this in the name the One who fully and constantly breathed You in, Jesus Christ – in whose name I pray, AMEN!

The Truth
What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 1 Corinthians 6:19
All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. John 1:3-4
For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? Deuteronomy 4:7

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