Achoo

"Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils" (Isaiah 2:22 NIV).

Name your hero. Tell me who your favorite athlete is. Shower me with excessive accolades of an incredible actor. Convince me of the greatness of a politician, entrepeneur, philanthropist, or business executive. Then hear my question: Can he hold more than one noseful of air at a time?

The greatest of all earthlings are equipped with one set of both nostrils and lungs. We pull in tiny amounts of air and push tiny amounts back out. Not very impressive.

Should we get a cold or suck daily doses of smoke-filled poison into our lungs, we find ourselves fighting a huge battle over a little event called breathing. We wheeze, we hack, we struggle to get it in and back out. Sometimes we have to take a seat so we can "catch our breath." My, what powerful creatures we are! Yeah, right.

Isaiah is asking us to think soberly about the confidence we place in man. Do we really want to put all our marbles in humanism when two marbles appropriately placed can plug one up and end his life?

The Message reads, "Quit scraping and fawning over mere humans, so full of themselves, so full of hot air!"

Stop being amazed by what man can do between wheezes. We can be easily stopped by simply being stopped up.

God, the creator and sustainer of all that exists, is the One we should adore. He puffed a little whiff of His air into the first human lungs and now, billions of people later, we are still reaping the benefits.

If we will personally invite Him to enter our lives through trusting in His Son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us, God will grant us eternal life. So that, our last breath of oxygen on earth ends nothing but our flesh and blood. The soul's oxygen never flickers.

If you want to compare man's nostril capacity to God's, spend some time on the following passages of Scripture: Exodus 15:8-10, 2nd Samuel 22:14-16, Job 4:9, 34:14-15, 37:10, Psalm 18:15, Isaiah 11:4, 30:28, and 40:7-8.

Unlike God, we are all, from time to time...

...tissue dependent
Perry Crisp