Holy Spirit: Wind
Holy Spirit: Wind
Have you taken time to watch the kite surfers down in Huntington Beach? Kitesurfing involves something similar to a surfboard, and a special harness that attaches to a small parachute type kite. The wind fills the kite and off you go for an adrenaline rush. Let’s watch:
The wind. Jesus in a late night meeting with a man named Nicodemus said:
John 3:5-8 (MSG)
Unless a person submits to this original creation—the 'wind hovering over the water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit. "So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above'—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."
order to live your life to the full.
There’s a well-worn cliché, “God doesn’t call the qualified, God qualifies the called.” You may have a million reasons as to why you can’t. With the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, you can.
“You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next.” Jesus uses the metaphor (that this thing is like that thing, comparisons that help us get a handle on an idea) of the wind to describe the workings of the Holy Spirit.
Just a little background. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God was poured into believers on that first Christian Pentecost. The Holy Spirit has always been present.
We read in Genesis that God’s Spirit incubated creation.
Genesis 1:2 (MSG)
Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.
We read in the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament, of the Spirit, coming upon someone and empowering them to carry out the will of God. Especially in the 7th book in your bible, titled Judges, you will read: “Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him.” The difference between before and after Pentecost is that before the Holy Spirit was with the person or upon the person,
afterward the Spirit was in the person, empowering you to accomplish God’s desires.
When you acknowledge that the Spirit of God is not within you, that your relationship with God is estranged. Believing that Jesus helps you to reconcile your relationship with God the Father and fill you with the Holy Spirit. By committing yourself to learning how to be a Christ follower, learning how to keep in step with the Holy Spirit, God the Father seals your faith with an infilling and sealing of His Spirit.
Ephesians 4:29-3 2 (NIV)
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Believers are sealed with the Holy Spirit of God.
Using Jesus metaphor of the wind to describe the Spirit we can say that the Holy Spirit is invisible, immaterial and powerful. Like the wind, the Holy Spirit puts things into motion, He makes things live. Like the wind, the Holy Spirit can be felt or experienced, but not seen.
I like most things in my life to be predictable, to be reliable. I need rationality and repeatability. I like to go with my strengths and shore up my weakness and cover my wounds. I like doing what I am good at, I don’t like plumbing. I tend to avoid the things that I am not good at, to stay on my comfortable turf. That is absolutely not how the Holy Spirit works in the lives of disciples. The Spirit like the wind is an unpredictable power of God that moves us to very unexpected places.
One of the most unexpected is placing us in our areas of weakness and wounds.
It’s in the place of our weakness and wounds that God reveals His saving, sanctifying, glorifying presence in the world. Consider that:
Abraham was too old.
Moses stuttered and had a criminal history.
Gideon was wimpy.
Samson was a moral failure.
Samuel didn’t feel qualified to speak.
David was guilty of multiple moral failures, and murder to boot.
Isaiah felt the call but felt a lack of gifts.
Nobody liked Jeremiah
Paul was a persecutor of Christians.
The common theme throughout the history of those whom God “called” was not their great qualifications for their service, or their superior moral standing, but their willingness to accept the call. The very weakness and wounds that made them vulnerable and imperfect made room for the Spirit to take charge.
The wind, where it comes from and where it goes, is unpredictable. The Spirit of God will take the least likely, the least obvious, the worst prospect, the last place you would ever look, and use that person or place to do God’s greatest work. You are that person, that place is your weaknesses and wounds.
You may have a million reasons as to why you can’t, why you could never, why you won’t, but it’s in your weakness and wounds, where you are the most vulnerable, where you really have no natural gifts where you will find the Holy Spirit using you to powerfully bless others.
2 Corinthians 12:7-9 (MSG)
Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first, I didn't think of it as a gift and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
The world tells us to go with our strengths. Take our natural gifts and inclinations and hone them into gainful employment. I’ve given that advice, “find something you love to do, learn to do it so well, that people pay you for doing it.” The church fads have told us to take Spiritual Gift tests, I have administered Spiritual Gift tests to discover an individual’s strengths and desires. “Discover your strengths and go with what you got.” We determine those strengths and desires and then we work to perfect them. We become good at using them. Those strengths are a blessing to others, through them we minister, we love on people. God wants to bless others naturally through our strengths.
God also wants to bless others supernaturally through our weakness and wounds.
Don’t believe that lie that Weakness and wounds, disqualifies you from being a conduit of God’s blessings. God said to Paul, my supernatural strength to others comes through your own weakness and wounds, my glory is seen in your weakness and wounds, for your accomplishments through your weakness and wounds reveals that I am the one doing it. Through our weakness and wounds, God’s strength is revealed.
Moses said, “send someone else.”
Gideon said, “forget it unless you send me better fighters.”
Jonah says, “I’m out of here,” and
then gets angry when God does what God says God is going to do.
Isaiah says “I can’t do it because I’m a sinner.”
Jeremiah says “Not me, Lord. I’m too young and immature.”
Ezekiel just hides, slips into depression, until God tells him to stand up and act like a man.
Zacharias says “I hear you, but what you’re asking is biologically impossible.”
Peter says “I’m too unsanctified to do what you’re calling me to do.”
Thomas says “Seeing is believing.”
Ananias says “You gotta be kidding? You want me to help Paul, the very person sent here to kill me?”
But they all said “Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord, Yes.” Because they believed and said yes, God’s strength was made perfect their weakness and wounds.
Maybe now is the time to check out your own life. Do your own weakness and wounds inventory. Where are you most weak? What kind of exchanges or interactions make you most uncomfortable? What has terribly hurt you?
These are your “weakness and wounds.” These are the very points and places where the Holy Spirit is most likely to pounce upon you and call you into service and take you to places you never dreamed of and accomplish through you things you could never imagine.
Bless others naturally, through your strengths and gifts. Then let the wind take you to the places that through your weakness and wounds can supernaturally bless others.
Rushing Wind
Jesus likened the work of the Holy Spirit like the wind. As we keep in step with the Spirit, we are moved to the most unlikely places and discover that God uses our weakness and wounds to supernaturally bless others. All you have to do to live your life to the full is say Yes Lord Yes and allow the Holy Spirit to fill your sails and take you to places you’ve never been before.
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