Last week I learned that the Holy Spirit is the Breath of God. This explains why the Holy Spirit is so often described as wind. Since I learned that I've been unable to stop thinking about it.
It's such a beautiful image to mediate on: the Breath of God. God breathing.
The Spirit of God was there, at the very beginning of at all (and before, presumably).
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." Genesis 1:1
I like imagining that as well. The Breath, Spirit, Wind of God hovering over dark waters. Where was He going? What was He looking for? Was He still or moving? In my mind I see stratus clouds, the type you see before heavy rain, but who knows.
Jesus is described as the Word of God.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.... and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us," says John 1.
So Jesus was there, too. From the beginning.
You know what else I have been thinking about? The relationship between words and breath.
Words are carried on breath. One can live and be alive without words, but it's with them that we express who we are, give instructions, share our heart.
I like to imagine the Word of God carried on His Breath into the world to share who He is and how He wants us to live and treat each other. Is that not what Jesus did?
I often think about how God and Jesus relate to one another, there is such profound love there. The relationship and cooperation between the Spirit of God and Jesus, must be equally beautiful.
Words are pushed forward by Breath. Maybe it's in this way those who profess Jesus do so by the Spirit of God.
I see so much of pregnancy and birth in this. An unborn child in the waters, like the Spirit of God hovered before it began. The child is born and while decipherable words come much later, after much anticipation and waiting, the cry, that sound is what puts everyone in the room at ease. The child lives.
And when a person dies, their breath returns to God.
Waters, breath, and words.
There's so much there to spend quiet time with God meditating on.
I hope you get to do so.
love, B