Live Free with Josh Howerton - Just a Breath Away // Matthew 1:23

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

Have you ever thought of breathing as a gift from God? In this final episode of The Daily Drive for 2024, Pastor Breaux  shares a heartfelt reflection about winter, Christmas, and the title of Jesus that means the most to him: Emmanuel, "God with us." Even in the cold, dark seasons of life, we are reminded of God’s closeness—just a breath away. With each exhale, we can see evidence of His presence, proof of His proximity. Take a deep breath this Christmas season and remember that the breath of the everlasting God rests in your lungs, waiting to bring His light into the darkness.   ➡️ For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. Church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive. Hope you've had a great week. My name is Bro, and winter is officially upon us.

And since Christmas Week is also upon us next week, this is going to be our last episode of 2024. So I thought that I closed this out with a short thought about winter and the reality of the Christmas season. You know, I love all the titles of Jesus that we hear around Christmastime. A wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, light of the world. But my personal favorite is Emmanuel, which means God. with us. And I hope you have a wonderful week next week celebrating the birth of Jesus. And today I want to share with you something my youngest son, Drew, wrote a while back. And I'm just going to read it to you. And this is what Drew wrote down. I hate winter. Winter is like going to one of my wife's friends' weddings.

The best part is when it's over. If I had to rank the seasons, winter would always come in last. Even if there were a season called Armageddon or fire, winter would still come in last. I mean, think about it for a second. It's cold, dark, dry, windy, rainy, snowy, icy, and more than anything, miserable. It gets dark before you get off of work. And when you get off work, it makes the commute home even worse. Not only are you stuck in traffic, but now you're stuck in cold, dark traffic, and your car is salty. Winter in the kind of south is interesting. Actually, it's fascinating. We're always right on the line of rain and snow. This line usually creates ice. Sometimes a weatherman comes on television and tells us that we might get two inches of snow.

And everybody acts like there's an asteroid coming. People rush to the grocery tour, frantically picking up loaves of bread and gallons of milk. I mean, if we're going to be trapped in our home for a while, shouldn't we pick up stuff that we normally wouldn't eat and that will eventually spoil? You see, that's what winter does. It makes us irrational because it's evil. I think winter is part of the fall of man. Maybe when Adam and Eve's sin, it got really cold, and God called it winter.

That's what it feels like to me, at least. There's only one cool part about winter. I guess you could call it its saving grace. It has to do with breathing. Breathing is important. I think that's something we can all agree on. Breathing keeps us alive. That's how God designed it.

We take air in, we breathe it out, and somehow during this process, our heart is allowed to keep beating. Now, I'm not smart enough to understand all that. I've always wondered how it works. I've always wondered what's in a breath. I mean, is a breath just this collection of molecules? Is it simply this physiological?

function that keeps us alive, or could it have to do more with actually living? What if we thought of breathing differently? What if instead of trying to figure out the science of breathing? What if we looked at the wonder of it? What if we viewed each breath as a gift, not because it keeps us on this earth any longer, but because it provides a glimpse of our creator? What if breathing has less to do with the preservation of our existence, and more to do with the existence of God's presence?

Maybe if we looked at breathing a little differently, we could begin to see God, to see how close he is. This is the only part I love about winter, breathing. Winter's one saving grace is this little chemical reaction. It takes place right in the heart of winter, assuming that winter has a heart. It happens in the middle of the cold, the misery, when it's dark and the air is dry. Maybe you get in your car and it's freezing, or maybe you're taking out your trash. I don't know. But you take in a deep breath of winter air.

And out of frustration, you put a little extra force in exhaling, and something happens. When the warm, wet air from our lungs contacts the cold, dry air outside, something happens. Chemicals collide, and this reaction takes place. I don't know how it works, but it results in this cloud of smoke. And all of a sudden, we can see our breath. I remember being so fascinated with this when I was a kid, because after all my futile attempts, I could finally see what was inside of me. The stuff that was inside of me was actually coming out, and I could see it.

It was right there in front of my face. I could even run my hand through it, manipulate it. It was incredible. It was like evidence of my existence, proof that I was really alive. I finally knew what was inside of me. What if we could live like that? What if we live with that assurance of what was inside us, of who lives inside us? Would it change us?

I've always found it hard to believe that God lives inside of me. It kind of sounds funny to me really like it couldn't be true. I've always imagined, you know, a tiny Jesus bored to death sitting Indian style on the top of my liver. But then I started to think about it differently. The Bible says that when God created us, he breathed his life into our lungs. He took each of us and breathed his life into us. For me, this is the coolest picture of creation. I imagine God kneeling down, breathing his air in each set of lungs,

cupping his hands around his mouth, so not a drop is wasted. So when you think about it, our breath is really his breath. His breath is our breath. We have the breath of the everlasting God resting in our lungs waiting to be exhaled, waiting to contact the cold, dry, dark winter, and erupt into this beautiful display of his presence. It's like evidence of his existence, proof of his proximity. It's as if with each breath we can see God. I think maybe that's what God meant when he said he is with us,

that he is in us. Maybe he knew that we would need a reminder of how close he is, especially in the dark, especially in the cold, especially in the winter. Maybe he wanted us to know that even in the middle of our misery, he's still there, still clothe, just a breath away. It helps me to believe that God is close, that he's in my breath. I think it's pretty cool that God gave us a reminder like this. And maybe it doesn't help you, I don't know, but I think it's pretty cool of God, though, to think about us that much. It's cool to know that we need reminders when life gets hard. When we're in the middle of our misery

and just want the season to be over, he reminds us that he's still there. We're still made in his image, and there's still heaven. I think we all could live better lives if we really believe that God was always with us, that he was just a breath away. And he is. And I hope that you breathe deeply this season,

for he is Emmanuel. well. He is God with us. Hey, like I said, this is our final Daily Drive episode of 2024. And man, I want to thank our team for the awesome year and all of you for faithfully listening. And I hope it's been super helpful to you in your pursuit of God. It's been an honor and a blast for me. But we're going to be taking a break from dropping any new episodes for a little while. We have almost 500 episodes in the library, so you can go back and just start with episode

one on January 1st and track along that way if you'd like. And you can share that as well. And stay tuned for a new podcast that we are super excited about that's coming next year. And hope you all have a Merry Christmas. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information about all the digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.com slash daily drive. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out?