Perspectives

Embracing a season of great change

By Janita Krayniak
Posted 9/2/21

It is fall! It is a season of change!

The kids are going back to school; there will be football games and other sports! Harvest is here, and the fields are ripe with the fruits of the labors …

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Perspectives

Embracing a season of great change

Posted

It is fall! It is a season of change!

The kids are going back to school; there will be football games and other sports! Harvest is here, and the fields are ripe with the fruits of the labors from the spring and summer. Apples are turning red in the trees and pumpkins are turning orange on the vines! The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer. It is a time of the year when even the leaves change in the coolness of the evening and we enjoy their beauty in the warmth of the autumn days.

Fall is a season of great change. There is a crispness in the air that refreshes not only our bodies that have grown weary in the hot summer sun, but it also renews our spirits with the promise that something is about to change. 

As I pondered this great season of change, a hymn came to mind: “Breathe on me, Breath of God” written by Edwin Hatch in 1886. It’s a very simple and beautiful hymn, but the change this hymn calls for is not superficial or shallow, it is profound and deep change. 

The stanzas read:

“Breathe on me, breath of God. Fill me with life anew, that I may love what you so love, and do what you would do.

“Breathe on me, breath of God, until my heart is pure, until with you, I will one will: to do and to endure.

“Breathe on me, breath of God, my will to yours incline, till all this selfish part of me glows with your fire divine.

“Breathe on me, breath of God, so shall I never die, but live with you the perfect life of your eternity.”

This breath of God is mentioned in John 20:21-22, when Jesus gives the disciples the charge to go forth with the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the same breath that is mentioned in Genesis 2:7 when God breathed into the nostrils of man — the breath of life! That is the kind of change that the breath of God brings in each one of us.

Just think about it. When we say the words “fill me with life anew, that I may love what you so love and do what you would do.” That is a big change if we are really going to love and act like God! Or stanza two, “breathe on me, breath of God until my heart is pure,” echoes of the psalmist who declares, “create in me a clean heart, O God!”

Stanza three declares the need for us to put away the selfish parts and to glow with the fire of the divine; that glow grows with the breath of God being blown into our souls. That is a great image isn’t it? When you blow upon a fire, the flame gets stronger, more intense, hotter.

Just think of how God through the Holy Spirit could ignite a fire within our souls and then from that spark, we could be filled with a blazing fire fueled by the breath of God. That is a real and meaningful change!

The final stanza goes beyond breath that keeps the earthly body alive and moves toward the union with Christ which we will experience when we reach eternity. This is the final moment of change, when we transition from here on earth to the eternal kingdom.  

Make a change this fall, amidst the apples, pumpkins, football and changing leaves: Remember to breathe … breathe in the air that beckons us to change … breathe in the very breath of God. Let God’s gift of the Holy Spirit change you. 

(Janita Krayniak is the pastor of the United Methodist Church of Powell and Lovell.)

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