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Isaiah 40:1-11 

The God who waits 

“… when the breath of the Lord blows upon it” (verse 7) 

In Jewish tradition only the consonants for Yahweh were printed in the Hebrew text – YHWH. As such, this most holy name for God was unspeakable. 

Interestingly, even the Hebrew consonants used in YHWH do not allow you to close your lips when you try to speak them.

We cannot confine God to words alone! And don’t dare try to close our lips around it and pretend we have God all figured out! Identifying with God since ancient times was simply the intake and exhalation of breath. The great “I AM” was the breath itself.

It is the great mystery we observe in waiting: that God is always beyond us but totally around us, within us and outside of us. And we all share in that same air and that same breath. It is the first thing we did coming out of our mother’s womb, and there will come that moment when we will do it for the last time.

But in between, we continue to take in the breath of God and exhale the breath of God – the totally accessible One, the totally given One, who like breath just waits to be received.

Ma-ra-na-tha, Come Lord Jesus (Sit in silence and stillness for twenty minutes. Gently, interiorly, and intentionally repeat the same prayer word, paying attention first to your breath)