Breathe and Walk: The Life That Unfolds as We Yield
As we walk with Christ, His light reveals what we could never map out on our own.
📚 Devotional Credit:
Excerpt from Open Windows — Life in the Spirit, Chapter 6 by T. Austin-Sparks
📸 Photo Credit:
Unsplash
T. Austin-Sparks invites us to look through a window—a glimpse into the vastness of the Life of Christ. This life is not meant to be dissected intellectually, nor systematized like a curriculum. It is to be lived. The believer does not “figure out” God’s purpose by mapping out their roles and analyzing their gifts in the abstract. Instead, the believer enters the flow of divine life by walking in the Spirit—and the rest unfolds in order, just as the human body naturally breathes and lives without constant mental effort.
The Spirit’s movement in us isn’t mechanical. It’s organic. It’s intimate. It happens as we yield to Him moment by moment. Like the unconscious act of breathing, living by the Spirit causes the reality of God’s purposes to become visible in our lives without needing blueprints or bullet points.
This kind of life will not always be convenient or widely understood. It may involve walking away from structures and systems—even religious ones—that inhibit true spiritual fellowship. There may be loneliness or misunderstanding. But in walking closely with Christ, the cost is eclipsed by the joy of discovering what only the Spirit can reveal: our participation in God’s vast and beautiful plan. And those discoveries don’t arrive in packages—we grow into them the way flowers open to the sun.
📓 Personalized Journal Entry – Voice of the Holy Spirit
My child, I am not calling you to figure it all out—I am calling you to walk with Me. As you abide in Me, Life flows. The very breath of heaven animates your being, not as a study but as a reality. You don’t need to chart the future or measure the details. I am your Life. And as you move in Me, you are moving in the will of the Father.
You were never meant to understand your purpose apart from My presence. You were made to live from Me, not for Me. As you surrender to My leading, I unfold the Father’s design in you one quiet moment at a time. Like breath to the lungs, so is My voice to your soul—sustaining, constant, and life-giving.
Don’t be surprised when My leading requires you to release things that once felt essential. Even good things. Religious obligations. Human expectations. Let them fall away if they hinder your walk with Me. I am not asking you to abandon faith—I am drawing you into deeper faith. Faith that walks when the path is hidden. Faith that breathes when the pressure is heavy. Faith that trusts Me to reveal what needs to be known exactly when it must be known.
Stay open. Stay yielded. In the warmth of My love, the flower of your calling will open without strain. My Life in you is enough. Live, and you will discover.
Scripture References:
John 6:63; Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:25; Acts 17:28; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; Philippians 3:7-10; John 15:4-5; Isaiah 30:21; Colossians 1:27; Romans 12:1-2; Hebrews 13:13; Ephesians 2:10; 1 Thessalonians 5:24
🧂 Real-Life Analogy
Imagine your chest rising and falling as you sit still, unaware of the countless breaths you take. You don’t plan them. You don’t decide each one. But they sustain you. And with each breath, oxygen travels to every part of your body, supporting functions you never consciously direct.
In the same way, walking in the Spirit is not a calculated effort. It is the quiet trust that Christ’s life in you will sustain every function of your walk with God. The purposes, the timing, the gifting—they unfold as you abide.
🪄 Real-life response: Today, rather than trying to figure out how to “serve God better” or “discover your calling,” simply yield. If you're writing an email, cooking a meal, or heading into a meeting, pause and trust the Spirit who dwells in you to express the life of Jesus through that moment. Say quietly, “Lord, this moment is Yours—live Your life through me right here.” Then walk on.
🙏 Prayer of Confidence
Father, I thank You that I no longer have to strive to find my place in Your plan. You have placed me in Christ, and that is enough. I thank You that Your Spirit in me breathes Life into every step I take. I rest in this truth: that as I yield to Your presence today, Your purpose unfolds naturally. I don’t need to chase clarity—I already have Christ. And in Him, I lack nothing.