It's Ok to Breathe Again: Devotions for the Soul

By Dr. Cheryl R. Smith

It's Ok To Breathe Again:Devotions For the Soul is a 31 day devotional intended to help refresh you, renew you and restore you. Life often times has the ability to deplete us of our energy and strength. There are times when because of the cares of life, we feel hopeless and lifeless. Yet there is something that fights for us and wants us to live. It's Ok To Breathe Again:Devotions For The Soul is intended to renew your hope and strengthen your faith. It is intended to help restore your peace daily and to allow you to know that life is worth living. This book is intended to reassure you that it really is ok to breathe again. It is time to stop holding your breath and live!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483697734

Dr. Cheryl R. Smith

Cheryl Smith, Ed.D. is a native of Baltimore, Maryland where she has worked in the Public School System for over 16 years. She holds a Bachelors Degree in Sociology, a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology, and a Doctorate Degree in Christian Education. She also holds Certification in Elementary Education. Dr. Smith has been in ministry for more than 17 years and currently Co-Pastors the Emmanuel Worship and Deliverance Center with her husband, Overseer James Smith. Her passion for ministry and her love for people has enabled her to consistently be a source of encouragement and strength to those she meets.

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Focus Day 1

EXODUS (EXIT)

Depending on what you believe, there is a week that some people celebrate every year known as Holy Week. Holy Week is the time leading up to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. It begins with Palm Sunday, the day he comes to Jerusalem and Ends with Easter Sunday, the celebration of his resurrection. Every day within the holy week something occurred that was part of his process to redeem man which confirms for us that nothing just happens; everything that occurs in our lives has purpose. Don’t go through any week of your life and miss the purpose because God is doing something whether you understand it or not. But anyway, this is the week where he cleans out the temple. This is the week where he goes through the city teaching and preaching. This is the week where Mary breaks the alabaster box and anoints Jesus feet with the precious content in her box. When she anointed him with that ointment, it represented her pouring on him her guilt, her shame, her frustrations, her hurts, her struggles, her confusion, anxieties, pain, sorrow, fear, sickness, etc. and he took all that to the cross. What’s in your box? Not my topic but a good place to pause. What is it that you need to break out of you and give to Jesus so that you can live? Just food for thought… .

Holy Week is the week Judas had the meeting with the chief priests and captains about betraying the Lord. When you strive to do the right things and fulfill purpose, there will be a Judas somewhere around. We think it is to distract us from purpose but when Judas shows up, that is when you know you are on course. Everybody needs a Judas (Another good topic that we’ll have to address another time but just know that Judas is part of your process that leads to victory.).

This is also the week where the Passover is celebrated and they have a Passover meal, known as the Last Supper. This is where I want to focus today. The Passover found initially in Exodus celebrates God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It also pointed to the coming deliverer and Savior of all people—Jesus Christ. What intrigued me in my study was the fact that God delivered them out of Egypt and many times when we hear the story of the red sea and the children of Israel we focus on the fact that they were delivered from the hands of the Egyptians, but today I want to look at their deliverance from the place—not the people. They were delivered from Egypt. In Hebrew, Egypt is known as Mitzrayim which is a narrow place, constricted space, a tight place. How appropriate that Egypt, the place of their bondage would mean a tight place. Their enslavement was connected to the place not just the people. Many of you have been in some tight places in your minds and in your spirits where you have seen no way out. Bondage of the oppressor was made even more intense because of the place where you were yet God always provides an Exodus, a way out. The pressures and cares of life at times make you feel like you will never get out of this; things will never get better, but God has an Exodus plan for your life. God says I’m trying to deliver you from a place—a place of bondage, a place of frustration, a place of defeat, a place of sickness, a place of anxiety, a place of struggle. You don’t have to be consumed by the thoughts of a defeated mind; a mind enslaved to an issue or a struggle; warfare that doesn’t seem to let up. Christ came that we might live. You have an exit plan already in motion. There is a way out of wherever you are. I don’t care how tight the place feels, God has made space for you somewhere else and it’s time to move. Egypt was a part of your purpose, but not your destiny. It is not the final course of your life—it was just part of the process, but it’s time to move. Whatever has been trying to hold you has got to let you go now because it’s connected to placement and God says it’s time to move. And guess what? It may or not be Holy week in reality when you read this, but we can create our own time of Holy week. You see Holy week would be a good time to do it because this represents the week of celebrating deliverance from the enemy. This is the time that you realize that what was suppose to consume you couldn’t because purpose was keeping you alive. This is the time that you realize that the Judas experiences in your lives were painful, but necessary for your development. This is the time that you celebrate that something in you has to die that you might live. It’s time to celebrate your Exodus from a tight place. Are you ready to move? I know I am.

Read: Exodus Chapters 12 and 14

Think about it . . .

• What in your life has you in a tight place?

• What do you need God to help you to