672,768,000 Breaths

Do you ever notice your breaths? All your life you're exhaling and inhaling, often mindlessly. It's just something we do, something we're created to do, something we do involuntarily to stay alive. It's the heartbeat of our fragile physical lifespan. And yet, seldom do we ever take a moment to think of air, breath, oxygen...Where it comes from and where it all ends.
The average respiration rate for a person at rest is approximately 16 breaths per minute.
That means on average, we breathe about 960 breaths per hour.
23,040 breaths a day.
8,409,600 breaths a year.
If you live to the age of 80, you will take 672,768,000 breaths in your lifetime.
Except that figure is actually way higher because it does not take into account the increased respiration rate during exercise, or the higher respiration rate of a child. 
And did you ever stop to think that each one of those over 700 million breaths is a gift? A huge important gift that gives you life every time it's received into your lungs.
Who would love you enough to give you more than 700 million gifts? Who would be that generous? Certainly anyone but the allpowerful Creator of the universe. Why would he care about someone so small and seemingly insignificant as you? Why would he even want to give your broken, selfish, hurt, and dying body life time and time again?
But yet he has. Every day He chooses to make the sun rise, to continue to give you the breaths you need to fill your lungs with life-giving oxygen. Every day He gives you the strength in your muscles and bones to go about your daily routine. Every day He keeps your body and every intricate part interconnected to maintain your daily functions. And although we barely ever think about it...without God, you wouldn't ever take another breath. Your life is in His hands and His alone. Everything that has happened to you, is happening to you now, or will happen to you in the future, He sees. He knows everything you've done, even the secrets in the darkest corners of your heart that you're too ashamed to let anyone see. He knows. He sees the way you've treated people, the way you've turned your back on Him time and time again, the way you've lived your life so often in disregard for Him. But yet He never turns His back and stops the lifeflow. No matter what you say, how many times you take his name in vain, gossip, slander, or speak mean words, he continues to give you the breath to say whatever you choose to say. Don't waste that infinite immeasurable gift. Don't take it for granted. Use each breath for something of worth...Something of value...Something that will last.