An Invitation to Breathe

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Good.

It's good to breathe. Especially on election day. We wake up holding our breath, don't we? It feels like that, anyway. Then, through the day—between emails, playing with our kids, sweeping floors, and updating spreadsheets—we make recurring commitments to disengage. But we can’t. It feels like a state of emergency. We keep picking up our phones, feverishly scouring the internet for updates and insights. We’re searching for clues to satisfy our longings for a preferred future. Perhaps, we think, the faintest sliver of hope will help our bodies unclinch and oxygen to fill our lungs again. As the sun goes down, our attention is still captured. Oversized cable news touchscreens. Exit poll interviews. Tallying numbers. Maps turning blue and red. We're all holding our breath.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Good.

Selah is one of the more misunderstood words of the Bible. To be sure, we don't know much about it. Perhaps you've never even noticed the word. But, it punctuates over seventy stanzas of many of your favorite psalms—like Psalm 3.

O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.”

Selah

Psalm 3:1-2

King David penned this song as he was running for his life. His son, Absalom, was out for his throne—indeed, a political (and familial) state of emergency. Wondering if death was around every corner, I'm sure David was holding his breath. He counts his enemies. He feels his feelings. He wrestles with accusations. But then he writes, Selah. Scholar Derek Kidner best understands this term as "the signal for an interlude or change of musical accompaniment." In other words, Selah is an invitation to pause ... to retune ... to introduce something new ... to take a breath.

That may be why the tone and content of David's psalm shifts after this interlude.

But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill.

Selah

Psalm 3:3-4

So much of our social experiences condition us to try harder to achieve our desired outcomes. Inaction can even feel shameful. But therapist Aundi Kolber has another idea: try softer. "There are truly times when the best, healthiest, most productive thing we can do is not to try harder, but rather to try softer: to compassionately listen to our needs so we can move through pain—and ultimately life—with more gentleness and resilience” (Try Softer, 4). When we try softer, we open ourselves up, like David, to witness the shield surrounding us. We realize our worth (or glory) is secure as children of the Heavenly Father. We learn to scourer the Scriptures, finding comfort in God's love and presence. Our bodies are set at ease, not because our preferred future is the majority opinion, but because the God who first breathed his life into our nostrils still fills us with his Spirit (see Genesis 2:7 and Acts 2:38).

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Good.

Breathing isn't resignation. It isn’t spiritual detachment. Taking a breath doesn't mean we're uninterested in the implications of an election. Seeking the good, the true, and the beautiful in the voting booth is vital to living with compassion and conviction as Christians. However, holding our breaths isn't activism either. We can be seriously engaged in civic society without being swallowed up by the fears of modern politics. We can breathe.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Good.

How do we do this? Well, at the risk of overstating the point, Jesus is our Selah. In the song of eternity, Jesus is the introduction of something new. Instead of hustling for our holiness and trying harder and harder to lay claim to the good life, Jesus invites "all who labor and are heavy laden" to get into life with him (Matthew 11:28). You see, Jesus is our rest. And resting in him is actually a wonderful and powerful political decision. Because when we rest in him, when we breathe, we’re embracing a peace that every election day is desperately trying to achieve.

Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people!

Selah

Psalm 3:8

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Good.