"You Are My Oxygen"

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Ever since I changed my religion from Real True Christian to fake Christian, I've had a really hard time getting on board with a lot of common worship songs. There are songs I used to love, songs about giving everything to God, about how we feel so so SO close to God, and now all I hear is how my trust was betrayed. Yeah, I bought into all of it, and it wasn't real. I can't trust God. I gave everything to God back then, and now I've lost everything. (Yeah that's a long story, we won't go into it now. "Everything" is mostly referring to my identity.)

I'm never giving everything to God again. I don't even believe in the concept of "giving everything to God." First, you have to decide which version of God you believe in, and what you mean by "give everything to God." Those are choices each individual has to make (or, you know, just go along with what your pastor says), and they by definition cannot be "given to God."

But there is one Christian song that I still love. "Oxygen," by Avalon.



Full lyrics can be found here. This is the chorus:

You are my oxygen
I breathe you in, I breathe you out
You are my oxygen
You are my love, you are what life's about

God is like oxygen.

God is the source of all life. In God we live and move and have our being. Every day, God is here, God is with us, and that will never change.

It doesn't matter if we know what oxygen is or not. We still breathe, day in and day out. It doesn't matter if we believe in God or not. God is still with us.

If I "feel" far from God, it's okay. It's not about conjuring up certain feelings. God is always here, giving me life.

If I don't read the bible. If I don't pray. If I can't read the bible or pray. If the only way I can believe God loves me regardless of whether I read the bible, is to not read the bible. It's okay. I breathe you in, I breathe you out.

God's love reaches so much farther than some Christians would have you believe. God is not limited by our beliefs (or lack thereof) about God. God's love is inescapable. God lives in every human, because we are made in God's image. Even if they don't know. Even if they don't believe in God. We all feel God and experience God, through everything good and right in the world.

To imagine that God can only interact with people who know the correct information about God is ridiculous. As if God is only able to bless you if you are aware that 2000 years ago in Israel, God lived and died and rose again. As if God can only make God's presence felt to those who would explain their experiences using language like "God's presence."

I really believe what Paul wrote in Romans 8:38-39. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Neither correct nor incorrect beliefs. Nor our inability to perform the correct religious actions. Nothing. Nothing, and I mean nothing. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

You are my oxygen.