May My Life Be Overflowing With Praise

The other day, the Lord kept giving me the words “may my life be overflowing.”  Just out of nowhere that phrase kept repeating and repeating, and I didn’t really know what it meant.  “May my life be overflowing with WHAT, Jesus???” I asked.  I didn’t know.  I assumed that it was a reminder to live a life overflowing with joy that comes from salvation, or something along those lines, but I wasn’t totally sure.  I wrote it down in my journal anyways, trusting that it would mean something. 

“May my life be overflowing.”

The next morning, I was listening to a song by Plumb called “Exhale.”  There is a line in the bridge that says, “We breathe in your grace and exhale.  Oh God we do not exist for us, but to share Your grace and love and exhale.”  “Breathe in your grace”—I love that.  Those words stuck with me, along with some others, and the phrase, “Breathe in grace, exhale praise” became the phrase of that day.  Breathe in grace, exhale praise.  Breathe in grace, exhale praise.  Breathe in grace, exhale praise.

“Breathe in grace, exhale praise.”

It took me a couple days to put the two together, but when it clicked, it CLICKED.  Because it was everything that Jesus had been teaching me.  I’ve been reading through the New Testament this past semester and am currently finishing up in Matthew (ending at the beginning is the way to go, right???).  The thing that the Lord keeps pointing out to me over and over again, in the Gospels especially, is that when Jesus heals someone (as He does literally all the time), the natural and immediate response is praising God.  Praise from the one who has been healed, and praise from the people who witness it.  Then this praise turns into them going and telling people what has happened.  We see this happen over and over and over and over.  This was something the Lord kept pointing out to me this semester.

And then that lesson was reinforced yesterday at church.  My church’s pastor was preaching about Luke 5:17-26, where Jesus heals the paralyzed man, and he made the comment that when people were healed, they told people.  Even when Jesus told them not to go around spreading the news—“THEY COULDN’T SHUT UP.”

It all comes together.  “May my life be overflowing.”  “Breathe in grace, exhale praise.” Lessons from the Gospels.

I wasn’t too far off when I originally thought that it was God telling me to have a life overflowing with joy from salvation, but He took me deeper in the last week.  When I am healed, as I have been by His blood, my response should be immediate praise, where I just can’t shut up about it.  Then it’s all about living in that.  That healing—that grace.  When I live there, I will be breathing in healing—grace—and exhaling praise.  Then my life will be overflowing—overflowing with praise. 

 Breathe in grace, exhale praise, overflow.