Oxygen

BY Amanda Bible Williams

Text: 1 Samuel 2:1-2, Isaiah 40:3-8, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

There was a time not long ago, a season I’ve described in these pages, when anxiety and false expectations covered me like a weighted blanket. As if the oxygen had been sucked out of every room, I couldn’t catch my breath. Then, slowly, the blanket began to lift. Inch by inch it lifted and the air rushed in—when my family loved me anyway, when the doctor understood, when the church held us up, when the long winter finally gave way to spring— until one day I could breathe again. Not the shallow gasps I’d become used to, but deep, lungs-full, eyes-clear breaths. It felt like coming back to life.

That heavy quilt of circumstance was real and it was stifling, but the gospel was always true, even when the heaviness covered me.

The gospel is not only for the moment Christ calls us to repent and follow Him. It is for every moment before and every moment after.

It is for our times of joy and fervor, and our times of doubt and despair.

It is for the day we stand basking in the bright light of hope, and the day we hide, head in hands, in the dark corners of our fear.

It is for the hour that just passed and the hour to come, the situation we just stepped out of and the one we’re walking into.

We need it every minute. The gospel is our oxygen.

But, here in our temporary home, the gospel can seem intangible and hard to hang on to. So where do we turn when the heavy blanket is closing in, when we’re in the dark, gasping for air?

We turn to God’s Word.

When we turn its pages and take in its Truth, the very breath of God fills our lungs, our heart, our mind, our soul. Whether we come to Him doubting, praising, weeping, laughing, His Word is for us and it is true. In this ever-fading world, God’s Word never fades. We can approach it in any condition, under any circumstance, and IT IS STILL TRUE.

When our will is weak, God’s Word is true.
When our faith is fragile, God’s Word is true.
When our hearts are heavy, God’s Word is true.
When we wonder if we even believe it, God’s Word is true.
The gospel is permanent, even when our belief buckles under the world’s weight.

The gospel is the reason we can take Paul seriously when he writes, “Rejoice always! Pray constantly. Give thanks in everything” (1 Thess. 5:16–18). It is the reason we can put away our faith formulas and walk side by side with the One who wrote faith into our stories and has promised to finish what He started. It is the reason a girl who’s made promises to God and broken them all can wake up each new day and invite hundreds of thousands of women to read Truth—the truth about the promise God has made to them, and even to her, and how He has kept and still keeps it, every day.

I am basking in the bright light of hope today, but that weighted blanket may be waiting in the wings. Maybe you’re under it now. Jesus promised His disciples they’d have trouble, and we’re guaranteed to have it too (John 16:33; 1 Pet. 4:12).

Darkness and death are weighty, and our emotions, our actions, even our beliefs may bend at their pressure. But our God does not. Even under the blanket, we can echo the prayer of Hannah:

There is no one holy like the Lord.
There is no one besides You!
And there is no rock like our God (1 Sam. 2:2).

Let your chest rise and fall today with the knowledge that the gospel is true. It is oxygen, available every moment of every day, and you can breathe it in.

The above is an excerpt from Chapter 8 of the book She Reads Truth: Holding Tight to Permanent in a World That’s Passing Away, written by Raechel Myers and Amanda Bible Williams. Find She Reads Truth, the book, on Amazon or anywhere books are sold.