We tend to take the air that we each breath in and out 23,000 times a day very much for granted. And yet, without it you and I couldn’t survive for more than a few minutes.

Every breath you take sucks in a trillion, trillion oxygen molecules that rush into your lungs, cross into your bloodstream, binding to your haemoglobin, and reach every cell in your body in less than 20 seconds.

Breath isn’t just air — it’s the spark of life coursing through you moment by moment. And yet, the one thing science has never been able to achieve – not for want of trying, I might add – is to create life from non-living matter. Never! But …

Genesis 2:7 … the LORD God took dust from the ground and made a man. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nose, and the man became a living thing.

The original Hebrew word for “breath,” ruach, is also used throughout the Old Testament to refer to the Holy Spirit. It has the same meaning as the Greek word pneuma, used to denote the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. Both words carry with them the sense of breath or wind – invisible, powerful, life-giving.

And just as God breathed life into your body (the only One who could), so the Holy Spirit breathes life deep within your spirit.

Like you, I’ve travelled through times where I felt like a zombie, the walking dead, as though the world had drained all the life out of me. But each time, when I’ve turned to God for help, His Spirit – His ruach, His pneuma – has breathed life back into my soul.

It’s the Spirit who brings life. In fact, He’s the only One who can!

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.