Encourage Them: No One Walks Alone

Is breathing life into the lives of others even possible? Breath of life...What does it mean? Does it even have a place in our hurried, quick-brewed, instant pot lives filled with tweetable quotes of 100 characters or less? Some might not think so, but I’m beautifully haunted by the story of Sarah that would beg to differ.

Sarah's face will forever be etched in the recesses of her nurse's spirit. Their lives collided without warning as she brokenly broke through the doors of a local pregnancy center. Breathless. Her face spoke what words could not – desperation and fear. She said she didn’t have an appointment in her calmest most keep it together voice, but her face and body screamed don’t turn me away. Please! Not you too. This is my last hope…You are my only hope.

Sarah was welcomed with compassion and love. I caught a glimpse of her in the reflection of the doors as she departed. A half-smile sneaked across her face for a brief moment that whispered with humble confidence, I’m going to be okay. I don't walk alone.

I’ve only caught bits and pieces of Sarah’s complete story - glimpses of truth in the weeks that followed. A boyfriend who desperately begged her not to keep the baby. A conviction that said otherwise. A baby girl due in the fall.

Sarah wasn’t a pawn in an activist movement pushed by a social agenda when she breathlessly broke through the clinic doors that day. She was a real woman with real needs who felt very alone. She needed compassion and reminding that no one walks alone.

The tapestry of Sarah’s life is loosely woven with another woman in whom we are all familiar, the woman at the well. Being born a Samaritan was no choice of her own, yet it was the cross she bore dreadful day in and grievous day out. That afternoon was not unlike any other. She cautiously approached the well once she saw no one more important needed to fill their clay pot. As her vessel filled so did her mind, with life reflections: mistakes, regret, shame, condemnation, and loneliness. She exhaled...convinced the horizon of her circumstances wouldn't break to dawn.

Shocked at the sight of a Jew, and even more taken aback at Him speaking to her, she offered Him all she had, a drink. He offered her life that she may never thirst again. The veil was momentarily stripped away in his offering, and what she saw astounded her - she was sitting knee to knee with long-awaited Messiah. At this revelation he requested she go back and tell her husband who she'd seen. 

Oh wait! Which husband? Never mind. You’ve had five. And the man you’re with now isn’t your husband. 

Wow! That’s a crass and condemning approach for a Savior who later told us “There’s no condemnation in Christ Jesus.” 

Through our Americanized lenses with cultural skews and distorted perspectives it's easy to miss. These were not condemning words, but words dripping with the sweetness of compassionate love. He was actually empathizing and encouraging her.

You see, in that culture at that time a woman couldn't divorce her husband. Husbands offered all certificates of divorce. That means this woman had been rejected too many times to count. Five husbands didn't like what was being built, and threw her into the round-file labeled Worthless Trash. She was esteemed as rubbish and unfit at the hands of others' opinions. Her vessel had repeatedly been shattered into a million shards until it was swept into the very sand filling her sandals each day on her way to the well. In her human strength she attempted to piece it back together, but it would seem each time she endeavored to draw water another crack broke loose. Her fresh water slowly seeped onto the parched dirt called her life. 

That’s when Jesus stepped in.

He empathized with her pain. He came alongside her rejection. He understood this treasured woman was being mislabeled as waste.

Upon closer examination, we see that before the story even took place, Jesus made a choice: “Jesus, as tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.” He was tired. He’d been traveling, ministering, discipling, and walking everywhere he went. He could have easily passed by the well and the woman. But he didn’t. He sat down and took the time to have an encounter with her that would not only breathe life into her and encourage her, but also remind her with compassion that she wasn’t walking alone.

“The Spirit of God has made me. The breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4) Isn’t it so good to be reminded that God’s Spirit has formed each and every one of us? This deeply intimate and miraculous molding and shaping supernaturally takes place in the womb before each of us draws our first breath. Along the way life’s circumstances and the enemy rob and blind us of seeing ourselves for who we’ve been created to be -- like Sarah and the Samaritan woman.

As lovers of Jesus, we are called to remind people the Spirit of God formed them. With unwavering dedication we breathe life afresh back into the souls of the breathless. Job tells us, “The Almighty gives me life.” We take that seriously and understand without our own personal walk and daily seeking the face of Jesus, we have nothing to offer. It is from humble hearts overflowing with Jesus that we are able to, in turn, breathe life, encouragement, hope, care, and confidence back into people as Jesus did at the well.

Sure, we get “tired from the journey,” but we choose to daily walk with Him; which means daily choosing to remind others they don’t have to walk alone.

In Ezekiel’s vision there were dry bones scattered across an entire valley -- completely dried out. He asked God if those bones coming back to life was even possible. It was! As long as Ezekiel told the dried-up bones -- that were people’s lives -- the true and living God wanted to breath into them and make them alive again. "He would breathe into them, and they would come to life. Then, they would know He was God."

The valley in which you live is full of dry bones; people who've lost hope and need the breath of life breathed back into them. People in need of reminding the Spirit of God has made them. People, who need prayed over as Ezekiel prayed of God’s people, “Breath into these dead bodies so they may live again.”

Breathing life takes time and sacrifice. It's a choice. A choice Jesus made for others as He saw each person as a valued commitment rather than a cause or pawn in an agenda. 

In Bob Goff’s book, Love Does, he describes:

Words can launch us. God made it so that ordinary people like you and me can launch each other. In fact, I wonder if we can launch people better than a dean of a college because we’re ordinary. I believe it’s true that the right people can say words that can change everything. And guess what? We’re the ones who can say them.

Let us part with the words of Ezekiel to breathe God’s very life into our spirits:

Suddenly, as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley.

Can you hear it? The rattling and shaking of dry bones coming to life?

The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons.

Can you visualize it? It's as if the bones are magnets who can't help but stick and reattach as they pop into socket and take their rightful places. 

Then, as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones.

Can you hear it? The slurping sound of muscles and live tissue attaching to bone as life springs forth.

Then skin formed to cover their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet – a great army.

Did you read it? They ALL came to life. In one accord. A great and mighty military force marching into battle toward the Kingdom of God. Their very souls breathe a breath in unison of blessing into the one who knit them together - their Creator.