Wind can be wonderful. Who doesn’t like having a gentle breeze blow across their face when the heat and humidity are bearing down on them? There are also some dangers that can be seen from the effects of wind. Did you know that in the Bible wind is a symbol or emblem of the Holy Spirit? The third person of the God-head, the Trinity, is seen and described in several ways in the scripture and one of those is wind. What are some of the characteristics of wind?
• The wind is independent. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3, “The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou canst tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” We never know the person or church that God will move upon in a mighty way. In old England, the sweet Spirit of God passed by most of the learned clergy men but that wind blew upon an uneducated Baptist preacher by the name of John Bunyan. He’d been a drunk often blaspheming God, yet the Spirit of God blew upon him. He was transformed by the power of God and empowered with the wind causing one of the most educated and lettered ministers to exclaim, “I’d trade all my learning for just a portion of that tinkers (he repaired pots and pans) power to persuade.” Wind goes where it wants. You don’t see it, just the effects of it. It travels in palaces and down the back roads and trails of the downtrodden.
• The wind is refreshing. Ezekiel 37 is one of my favorite prophecies in the Bible. It is the vision of the dry bones. It wasn’t until the wind (breath) blew upon the bodies that they lived. 37:14 says, “I shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live.” How refreshing it is to stand on a beach in the nighttime and feel the wind blowing off the water or working in the garden on a day when a gentle wind caresses your face; even so in the Christian life when those times of refreshing come and the wind of God enlivens your soul. I ask the Lord every week to please let our church be a place of refreshing where hurting people receive help. It is my prayer that each day we will be a people so yielded to God that the Spirit moves with refreshing. Wind blows away chaff. When the Spirit of God is in control of our lives the chaff, the sins, are blown away from the grain.
• The wind is powerful. We hear stories and watch video clips often on the news about the wind’s awesome intensity. Trees uprooted; roofs blown off, & bridges collapsing are just three of the type stories concerning the power of wind. No one is beyond the Spirit of God reaching them. George Muller was a preacher used of God and had a voice that could be heard when preaching a mile away. In his early life, Muller testified that he was a habitual thief by age ten. His father was a Lutheran. He gave George money for his confirmation and told him to take it to the Lutheran minister. He stole eleven-twelfths of it. When a little older, he was traveling with a companion through Switzerland and stole his “friends” money. He was a confirmed drunkard at sixteen and in prison at seventeen. He contracted a sickness as a young man. Over three months he lay on his back in a sick bed. Everyone thought he was hopeless, but the Spirit of God is powerful. The wind blew upon him and he became one of the greatest preachers of all time.
Let’s pray together that the wind, the Spirit of God, will blow upon us and upon our church. May each of us not quench or grieve the Spirit but be obedient to his wooing’s. We have been traveling deep waters recently as a congregation with sickness and death, but the comfort of the sweet Holy Spirit will be more than adequate. His presence will be overwhelming when it is needed most.