The opening lines to this song “It’s okay, to not be okay. This is a safe place…” resonates strongly with one of our primary desires as fallen humans: the need to be accepted even when we know that we don’t deserve to be. No one in themselves is deserving of acceptance before God and we all struggle to see how our stained and broken past is something that we don’t have to hold on to. But despite our imperfection and inability to sometimes let go, God wants us to draw close to him regardless of the baggage we carry with us. We are all in the midst of a journey seeking to be more like the Lord Jesus and that cannot truly happen if we continue to hold on to who we have been and fail to fully surrender to him. God is longing for you to find him and the strength that comes through his love. It is sometimes a difficult reality to embrace that, “No matter what you’ve done or who you are. Everyone is welcome in his arms.”

We all desire to know and realize in the core of our being that we are reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus even with all our mistakes and weaknesses because sometimes when life seems to be at the best it has ever been, it caves in on you and you find yourself facing the most trying time of your life confronted with situations or circumstances you could have never imagined. When life comes crashing down it puts your faith to the test and it pulls you into a battle deep within your soul. It is during those strenuous trials that we need to breathe…we need to breathe the breathe of life…we need to breathe in God’s GRACE.

But if we do not breathe in God’s grace and hope and let it transform us and show us who we are and what we mean to him and that we are accepted as we are, we have nothing to breathe out and exhale to the hurting and broken world around us. If we never breathe in, we can never know that we are beloved with all our ugly scars and wounds. In times of desperation and in our lowest moments of darkness, if we breathe in the life-giving grace that is able to break through our pain and give us hope, we will be able to breathe that out into others who are also in desperate need of it. For those who also choose to breathe in, God will reconcile their heart to his and show them that they are his child no matter what they have done.

Regarding the theme and title of their new album (“Exhale”), Plumb’s lead singer (Tiffany Lee) commented that, “The title comes from something my pastor said recently: ‘We do not exist for us…we exist to share the grace and love so freely given to us all…we breathe it in, it changes us, it makes us new and then we share it – we exhale.”

All we need to do is breathe in God’s grace, goodness, and love………and then EXHALE.

Isaiah 41:10, 13 NIV
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand….For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.

————————