O2: Breathing New Life into Faith (ConversantLife.com®)

by Richard Dahlstrom

I see more passion for trees in the Sierra Club than I do for Jesus in the church.? How can Christians revive and sustain their spiritual vitality? International Bible teacher Richard Dahlstrom offers an answer as practical and life?sustaining as oxygen. People can?t hold their breath forever or continually blow air out, yet many Christians focus either on the inner life or on external service. As a result, their faith eventually becomes lifeless...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0736922148
• ISBN13: 9780736922142
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 4.4" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

a must read

I will say this is a MUST read of 2008. As someone who struggles with where I fit into the scheme of life and Christianity, it really did help breath new life into my faith! If you want to buy one book this year to improve your walk with God I strongly encourage you to pick this up and read ALL THE WAY THROUGH IT.

Finding Spiritual Balance

Excellent read, applicable, down to earth, tangible ways to live in the world with a balance of the Inhaling Disciplines (prayer, bible, solitude, silence) and Exhaling (hospitality, service, loving people).

Breathin Easier

This is an inspirational read that helps us make the connection between the Truths of life and the reality of living it daily. The personal stories of the author give it an intimate and genuine feel throughout. It brought me to tears as I reflected on my own walk in the Faith.

A Wonderfully Fresh Way to Practice Your Faith

"O2: Breathing New Life Into Faith," what a perfect analogy for a faith that is alive and energized with promise at every new breath. Breathing, it is something we all must do, and is so essential that it an involuntary act controlled by our autonomic nervous system. However, breathing can be done in shallow breaths that give us just enough oxygen to live banally, or it can be done in full, deep breaths that fill our lungs to capacity and provide the rich oxygen needed to live vibrantly. This is the life Christ offers us and the kind of faith Pastor Dahlstrom encourages us to practice. Full breaths of life giving faith not only nourish our soul and spirit, but also allow us to exhale needed sustenance into the lives of others. I have read several books on the spiritual disciplines, but none that truly inspired me to practice them. This book however gave me some fresh ways to think about practicing them that didn't become legalistic. In this busy world, most of us don't need anymore check off lists. Pastor Dahlstrom relies of the freedoms given by God which allow us, in our individual and unique way, to worship and obey God through the act of exhaling and inhaling the disciplines. Certainly, there are things that are common to all of us to fill our lives with the O2 of faith, but Pastor Dahlstrom shows us with theological evidence, humor, examples from his life, examples from the lives of faithful Saints, and from the life of Christ, that there is a multitude of ways to practice these disciplines. Additionally, he writes that there are times and seasons where certain disciplines are practiced more diligently than at other times; and what I found so remarkable about this fact, is that it is okay! Christ gives us the freedom to have seasons with more solitude, silence, and prayer than others, times of deeper Bible study than at other times, times when taking in the breathtaking natural beauty of the world God created is enough to fill us, and times when we focus more significantly on loving others with hospitality, service, and generosity. This wonderful book is an outstanding piece of work that would benefit a believer at any stage of his or her life. It contains wisdom and ideas that we all need to hear as we strive to become the "Artisans of Hope" that God desires us to be and that this lost and hurting world desperately needs.

a spiritual life that can change the world

As a university minister and as a person seeking to live some good news, I have been waiting for a book like this. Richard Dahlstrom has done something remarkable: he's given us a vision for a vibrant personal spirituality that is deeply connected to something much larger than ourselves. What we've got here is a theological worldview that includes us, too. Many authors have neglected one or the other. Other books I've read on the spiritual disciplines have offered wonderful methods for living a balanced life, rooted in Christ. But sometimes they stop there, and leave us wondering if there's anything bigger--a purpose and a mission beyond our own individual healing and personal salvation. On the other hand, some of the great scholars of the Christian faith have recently pointed out that the Kingdom message that Jesus and Paul preached was a revolutionary one, dealing with issues of power and justice and government. And sometimes we wonder how our own small lives fit into that global enterprise. In an uncommon way, Dahlstrom holds these things together. He calls for us to be a people of hope, with our eyes fixed on the Kingdom of God that is coming. He reminds us that God intends to redeem the earth, to make all things new. We're waiting for God's promises to be realized--a new Kingdom in this place that looks like reconciliation, justice, peace, and love. We are part of a redemption story much bigger than our own lives. Dahlstrom reminds us that ever since God's promise to Abraham ("through you all the families of the earth will be blessed"), the mission of God's people has been a mission of blessing. And this is precisely why the spiritual disciplines matter...because God is calling us to be a people marked by a new Kingdom, a new world order. Through us God intends to make the Kingdom visible on earth, for the blessing of all. We make this reality visible in the world by first encountering Christ ourselves, and then by living our lives in a profoundly new way. We adopt a "rule of life" keyed to a new set of values. We inhale intimacy and love and peace. We exhale compassion and generosity. We inhale stillness and solitude and respect for creation. We exhale a fierce restlessness in the face of evil and injustice. And we practice doing it over and over again. In this breathing process we discover the Spirit of God alive in us, transforming and healing us. And we discover our place in the big story of redemption that God is writing for the whole world. I will be reading and recommending this book for years to come!