Coming Up for Air

Tonight as I stood along the back wall listening to PB talking about contending for the faith, I kept thinking about people feeling overwhelmed with life (even the good parts), those overwhelmed with fighting the good fight (2 Tim. 4:7). The thought of coming up for air, the "just breathe" concept kept churning inside me. Even wonderful things (like moving to a new building) can seem almost too much sometimes.
The ability to breathe under water is not natural. Eventually, we all have to come up for air unless we have some type of device helping us to breathe. When life gets busy and overwhelming or there is some crisis affecting us, we tend to tell ourselves "Just Breathe". Anna Nalick has written an entire song about it (Just Breathe - 2am). All kinds of doctors and counselors tell people to just breathe or to take a deep breath to calm them down. But, maybe, just maybe, to "just breathe" is only the world's solution. In fact, in my recollection and reading of God's word I can't remember a time that the solution was for us to take a breath.
As we were preparing for water baptism and actually baptizing I was taken back to a moment in my past. Have you ever heard someone breathe their last breath? I have. It is a paralyzing moment to say the least. It is like the deep inhale you make when the doctor checks your lungs, except there is never an exhale. While watching a friend of mine (who happened to be former drug addict and achoholic) be baptized, the most amazing thing occured. As he was dunked into the water, the death rattle rang clearly from his lungs. When he came up out of the water, he breathed as if God himself had just piped air into his lungs. It was an amazing and terrifying moment. The presence of the Lord was obvious, and it seemed if almost everyone in the congregation began to weep. It was as if the person he was literally died as went under the water. And, the person who rose up out of the water was a brand new creature. In Christ that is how it should be.
Water baptism is an outward sign of an inward commitment made to Christ. It a symbol of the death of the old and a rising up of the new. Therefore, PB's message was all the more fitting. Part of contending for the faith is dying. When the situation (whether good or bad) seems too much, rather than breathing, we should probably ask ourselves how good of a job we have been doing at dying. Just read Romans 6 (there are a lot more NT references to this, but this particular chapter is very comprehensive). The writer of Corinthians tells us that he dies daily (1 Cor. 15.31).
So, my point -
maybe we shouldn't be coming up for air, but constantly remembering our baptism day. We should be taking that daily dunk where we breathe our last and come up having our lungs filled with the breath of Christ Himself who died that we might live.

Oh Praise the One who Payed my Debt and Raised This Life up From the Dead.
Jesus Paid it All.