But I am afflicted and in pain;
May Your salvation, O God, set me securely on high.
I will praise the name of God with song
And magnify Him with thanksgiving.
And it will please the Lord better than an ox
Or a young bull with horns and hoofs.
The humble have seen it and are glad;
You who seek God, let your heart revive.
For the Lord hears the needy
And does not despise His who are prisoners.

Let heaven and earth praise Him,
The seas and everything that moves in them.
For God will save Zion and build the cities of Judah,
That they may dwell there and possess it.
The descendants of His servants will inherit it,
And those who love His name will dwell in it.

Psalm 69:29-36

I was drawn to this Psalm on June 9th. My Jesus never ceases to meet me where I am and draw me into His presence. I claim to lift up His name in praise, but in reality He alone does the lifting. I am without the ability to even consider lifting His name in praise apart from His grace. He lifts me and He puts the song in my heart and He breathes out the words of exultation…. I breathe in His grace and with every inhale of grace the only possible exhale is praise.

Just like a fish out of water, when we are hooked and snatched and reeled out of the oceans of His grace we will find ourselves flopping around in confusion and panic on the hot stinging sand. We will also find ourselves in something like an asthma attack of discontent, grumbling, and complaining that is actually slowly but surely choking us to death.

Our bodies are designed to breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. If one does not inhale, the level of carbon dioxide builds up in the blood, and one experiences overwhelming air hunger. This irrepressible reflex is not surprising given that without breathing, the body’s internal oxygen levels drop dangerously low within minutes, leading to permanent brain damage followed eventually by death (wikipedia)

So if we don’t we inhale we die… and if we can’t exhale we poison ourselves.

Our spirits are designed to breathe in His grace and exhale His praise… If we don’t inhale His grace then we discover that poisons are building up inside of us and we will begin to experience spiritual starvation… our ability to function faithfully begins to drop into dangerous levels and we find ourselves in survival mode. We find that we are unable to think clearly and discern as we once could… brain damage is underway.

However on the opposite end there is just as much danger. If you are one who breathes in His grace and yet never exhales His praise… you will find that grace turning into self-entitlement and arrogance and that poisons you in such a way that is worse than death.

If that’s you beloved… if you are breathing in His grace but breathing out only grumbles and complaints… you are choking my friend. You also will find that you are not just choking yourself but you are breathing out poisons that will choke everyone else around you too.

We, must both inhale His grace and exhale His praise. If we don’t we will discover that no matter how hard we try we simply are suffocating.

What happens when you can’t breathe is that you can’t speak either and you discover that you no longer even have the ability to cry out for help… and you look around in amazement at those who seem to walk right by you and smile and even wave and yet can’t see that you are struggling to just breathe. How thankful I am that the Lord doesn’t need our words… He hears our heart.

In one of my favorite movies, The Proposal, Sandra Bullock is having a freak out and in her freak out moment she gets thrown from the boat into cold Alaskan waters. The worst part about being thrown overboard is she can’t really swim. She somehow makes it to a buoy and she’s hanging on to it for dear life. The safety of that buoy is short lived and it is just going to toss her around and keep her afloat depending upon her own ability and strength to hold on to it. The buoy does not hold on to her, she holds on to it. Yet her rescuer is right there with outstretched arms ready to pull her into safety, but to get back into the arms of the one who loves her and will hold one to her, she must first let go of that floating buoy.

That’s where I am at.

Letting go of the buoys… and reaching for the arms of my Rescuer.

In letting go, I am still not sure what all I am letting go of. The Lord is actually more like prying things out of my hands, pulling loose one finger at a time to one hand at a time. As I question everything and here Him say over and over again, “how many times must I tell you“

I am His and He is mine. I am a prisoner of His grace. He is calling me out upon the waters of the oceans of His grace and upon the great unknown… I don’t know what is coming next… I just know the One who is calling and as I stand upon these unknown waters I stand on feet that are shackled to the gospel of my God.

Releasing, letting go, waiting. I don’t care how deep He takes me… as long as I remain a prisoner of His presence.

Because when you are a prisoner of the Lord… He doesn’t allow you stay a captive to anyone or anything else long. I am indeed His prisoner… bought and paid for… I belong first to Him. And in my slavery to Him I can’t help but teach His Word and declare the glory of His grace… I must breathe in His grace and exhale His praise…

I must proclaim the gospel of Christ.

and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. Ephesians 6:19-20

My question now as I wait to hear more from my Lord is how, when, and where…