between the inhale & exhale
photo credit: Alex Hockett
“Life happens between an inhale and an exhale!” ~Brianna Z.
I first read this quote a few years ago on the inside of a dark chocolate Dove wrapper, and it has stuck with me since. Such a simple statement, and yet so profound.
According to the 2022 United Nations projections, the current life expectancy for the average person is 72.98 years. (UN life-expectancy) Obviously this varies depending on a variety of factors, but for the sake of an average baseline number, let’s just work with their data.
We all have the same amount of minutes in each of our days, 1440 to be exact, dispersed over a 24-hour day. If we were to total up the days we have, assuming we are blessed to live at least 72.98 years, that would be 26,637.7 days, or 639,304.8 hours, or 9,205,989 minutes. I don’ t know about you, but those numbers do not sound like a lot of time to me, and yet isn’t it pathetic how easily we can waste those precious ticks of the clock.
As a society, it appears we all are searching for the best way to manage our time. Everywhere I look I see advice on time management, 90 days to a better life, 90 days to a beach body, how to have a better work life balance, best ways to organize our day to maximize our efficiency, output, and productivity. We spend all kinds of money on ways to make our lives more efficient and cram more into our day and our kids days.
I think it is safe to say that because of our desperate search to maximize our time, clearly we all realize that life is really one giant breath. At birth, after the umbilical cord is cut we need an inhale to kick start our lung function outside of the womb, and at death, our final act is our last breath, or our final exhale.
Life began when“…the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)
We experience life because, “The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” (Job 33:4)
One day we all will take our final exhale. “A person's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed” (Job 14: 5)
photo credit: Nathan Dumlao @nate_dumlao
So, the question really becomes more about HOW are we managing those precious moments between our first inhale and our final exhale? Not one of us is promised tomorrow. We do not know when or how our time here will end, but one thing we do know is the fact that IF we are blessed with 72.98 years, our 9,205,989 minutes are going to fly by and the question we need to ask ourselves is this, will we spend our lives searching and trying to organize our days with list after list of intentions, or will we act?
Every conversation these days always centers around how busy we are and how much our lives revolve around busyness. We are a society desperately seeking ways to have more time, or better ways to use our time, and people say they genuinely want to learn how to better manage it, but there is very little effort spent on the actual execution of any plan. Doesn’t it seem we have the best of intentions, with little, if any follow-through?
I’m sure we have all heard the English proverb, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions?”
The road to hell is paved with good intentions means that it is not enough to simply mean to do well, one must take action to do well. A good intention is meaningless unless it is followed by a good action. Good intentions must be accompanied by acts of our will in order to accomplish what we planned. Laziness, procrastination, and fear can all play a part in keeping our intentions only that.
The other morning, I was watching a beautiful sunrise out my front window, as I do almost daily, and I was thinking about our grandkids and how fast the years are flying by with them, and God spoke to my heart in that moment. He impressed upon my heart, that life is much like a beautiful sunrise or sunset, if you blink you will miss it. There’s a very small window of time to appreciate the full glory of a sunrise or sunset especially in those precious and beautiful moments leading up to their peak performance.
photo credit: Johannes Plenio @jplenio
Life is like a good sunrise or sunset. The moments from our inhale, leading up to our final exhale are precious moments that we can either fill with action and really live out those precious moments and get to experience those moments of glory, or we can fill our lists with good intentions and miss our sunrise and sunset moments, ultimately missing those beautiful peak moments due to our failure to act.
I have had times in my life where I have had the pain of disappointment, times when a beautiful or precious moment in time passed me by, never to be gotten back, and I would have told you then, straight up, that I had the best of intentions to visit that person, or make that phone call, or take time off work, or not work those extra hours, but what I did not have was the discipline of following through, and alas, all those intentions meant nothing. The opportunity was gone.
I learned the value of intentional and disciplined behavior, early in my sales career. I learned what I needed to do to be successful, and it wasn’t about my planner per se, or my list of intentions. It was all about action. Much of the success in my sales career isn’t because I am some super star, or some brilliant saleswoman. It’s because I follow through on my word to my clients. I have been told, most of my competitors do not have good follow-through. My yes is my yes, and clients know they can count on me to deliver when I give my word. I have been told by many clients that is my “superpower” so to speak, over my competition.
While I know this is a compliment, really, how sad is it that is what puts me above my competitors? Follow-through, keeping my word, and just being intentional to act, whether I want to or not, makes me somewhat of an anomaly in the world of sales.
Through the years, I have learned an important lesson about discipline and intentionality. I cannot do it on my own, not in my work life, my personal life, or in my faith journey. I can use all the best planners in the world, and I can read books and articles, I can listen to all the podcasts on time management, and being efficient, but in the end it takes discipline, commitment, and effort to execute. None of us have this kind of discipline or commitment in all areas of our life all on our own.
I need God’s help to be disciplined in all areas of life so that I may honor the breaths between my inhale and my exhale. To do the hard things- to get to the holy things that God is calling me to.
There are all kinds of excuses we can make for not keeping our word, or for not acting on our intentions, but they are all just that, excuses. Truth is, as previously stated, we ALL have the exact same number of hours in our day, and we make time for what is important to us. I have heard many ministers say , and I know this from living life and being guilty of this myself, where we spend our time and money reveals what is first in our heart.
A person’s heart is tied to what they value most in life. Jesus spoke of this truth when He stated…
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21).
“As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.” (Proverbs 27:19)
“You can say you love Jesus, but if you don’t spend any time with him, then you don’t love him as much as you think you do.”
“Here’s how you know what’s really important to someone: Look at their calendar and look at their bank statement. The way you spend your time and money shows what’s really important to you.”
“You can say, “This is really important to me.” But what you say in this case doesn’t really matter. If you don’t spend time on it and you don’t spend money on it, then your heart isn’t really there.” (Rick Warren, Leaving a Lasting Legacy)
Life is hard, and each day we have breath in our lungs we are forced to make important decisions about our precious 1440 minutes. It’s easy to lie to ourselves and rationalize our list of intentions and why they have to wait for another day, or why our schedules simply don’t allow or afford us the opportunity that others have in theirs. Lord knows we have plenty of affirmations from a worldly perspective that will justify our procrastination, or laziness, but hard choices call us because we are meant to answer to higher and better things.
You’re meant to do hard and holy things because they are the next thing —- to get to the best thing.
You’re made to do hard and holy things — because there’s no other way to get to the happy and holy things.
Life is Pain — and you get to choose: either the Pain of Discipline or the Pain of Disappointment.
Nothing happens without discipline. No music gets played without discipline. No games get won. No finish lines get crossed. No freedom gets tasted. And you want that.
Between our first inhale to our final exhale, we are meant to do great things. Not necessarily great by the world’s standards, but most definitely by God’s. In order to do so we need to choose our path, the pain of discipline or the pain of disappointment. If we choose discipline we are going to need to spend time with Jesus, each and every day because we do not have it on our own to be disciplined in most areas of our life.
Below are four suggestions to consider should you choose the “pain of discipline.”
1. In order to live with discipline, intentionality, and with purpose, we need to know God. The only way we can know God is to spend time with Him. We need to know His character & how He operates. There is no other way to know Him than to spend time in God’s word and in prayer.
2. We have to set our intentions, and this doesn’t mean keeping our intentions or goals to ourselves. This involves accountability. What do we want to achieve? How can we give back to the world? The time between our inhale and exhale is short. How can we make the most of it? Dr. David G Benner says in his book, The Gift of Being Yourself. He writes: “To live apart from a sense of calling by God is to live a life oriented simply to our own choices about who we want to be and what we want to do. Calling brings freedom and fulfillment because it orients us toward something bigger than self.”
3. Manage your time wisely. Once you have a sense of where God is leading you, be diligent to choose activities and commit to things that align with your purpose. Do not allow busyness, idleness, or laziness to wedge its way into your precious time.
4. Think on purpose. The next step to living intentionally is to think on purpose. Dr. Roger Birkman said, “The reality of life is that your perceptions – right or wrong – influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective on your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place.”
photo credit: Yasin Yusuf @yasinyusuf
We have generations of young people coming up behind us who are desperate for examples of people living a life of intentionality. Youth desperate to see what it means to be committed. Youth desperate to see examples of us choosing the “pain of discipline” in order to see the value in doing the hard things in life, those things that bring eternal rewards after our last exhale.
Contrary to what the world and society may try to make you believe, the pleasures of this world and life will one day end for all of us. Earth is our temporary journey to our eternal destination. Remember, living an intentional life isn’t about perfection. It’s about powerfully choosing all of your life and stepping into the purpose that God has called you to.
It’s about treasuring each and every precious breath, making the most of and not wasting those 1440 minutes of each day from our first inhale to our very final exhale. Intentions alone will not get us to heaven. We are required to act.
