LET EVERYTHING THAT HAS BREATH PRAISE THE LORD . . .

LET EVERYTHING THAT HAS BREATH PRAISE THE LORD . . .

As you prepare your hearts for worship tomorrow, think about this from
the pen of Dr. Richard Swenson . . .

"Every breath we take contains 150 million molecules that were breathed
by Jesus. The exact same air molecules. It is one of the many ways He
shares life with us -- intimately. Whenever we inhale, Jesus is there
with us sharing Himself minute-by-minute and molecule-by-molecule.
Daniel spoke of the God who holds in His hand your breath.

We breathe about 23,000 times per day and 630 million times over an
average lifespan. With each inhalation we breathe 10 molecules, more
than a billion trillion with each lungful.

Once the air is in the lungs, the next step is to get it into the
bloodstream. The lungs first divide the breath into smaller portions and
send each down a series of dividing wind tunnels. Finally, the air
arrives in different peripheral "rooms" where each molecule of oxygen
can receive individual attention.

These rooms, called alveoli, are actually tiny air sacks. Perhaps you
can picture them like bubbles, miniature balloons, or clusters of hollow
grapes. The average diameter of these alveoli is only twice the
thickness of paper. Overall we have about three hundred million such
alveoli, greatly increasing the surface area available for the oxygen to
come into contact with. If you were to spread out all the alveolar
surface and lay it down on the floor, it would equal half the size of a
tennis court.

With the inhaled oxygen now closely approximated to the lining of the
alveoli, the red blood cells and hemoglobin within the capillaries can
attract the oxygen across the thin membrane and begin transporting it to
the various cells.

With increased exercise the muscles need more oxygen. Under strenuous
conditions, the muscle demand for oxygen may increase as much as ten
fold-- a demand the pulmonary system can me because of a huge built-in
physiologic margin in our respiratory function.

Once again God has pulled off another display of His creative genius.
All He asks in return is 'LET EVERYTHING THAT HAS BREATH PRAISE THE
LORD!"

Are you praising the Lord with the breath God has given to you? Good
words to ponder today from A MINUTE OF MARGIN -- RESTORING BALANCE TO
BUSY LIVES and published by our friends at NavPress. This book is
available at the KESWICK ONLINE BOOKSTORE -- www.americaskeswick.org