As the wind blows...so we go...

Sometimes inspiration comes easily, effortlessly...other times, life can bog you down, and it seems like inspiration will never come again. Have you ever felt this way?

It reminds me of what Jesus said in his conversation with Nicodemus. He was trying to explain the spiritual life to Nicodemus, and his choice of the wind as analogy is an interesting one...

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going; so it is with every man who is born of the Spirit. John 3:8

The Holy Spirit, like the wind, blows as it will (you may prefer to refer to the Holy Spirit as either "he", or "she"...). The point is, we can no more control the comings and goings of the Holy Spirit in our lives than we can control the winds that blow. As Christians, we pray for the Holy Spirit to fill us, to guide us, to empower us...but if we think we control the Spirit by our prayers, I believe we think amiss. It's hard, for me anyway, to accept this lack of control...to trust that God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, will blow exactly when and how I need him to blow...to move things in and around my life, just as they need to be moved. And perhaps even more importantly, to blow in the lives of other people in exactly the way that those people need him to move. I need to be reminded...on a regular basis, that I am not the Holy Spirit in my own life, much less in the lives of others!

The spiritual life then, if I might make this suggestion, is somewhat like hoisting the sails of a sailboat...and then waiting for the wind to blow.

And what if the wind does not blow? Well then, we sit still...and wait for it to blow, as it will.

The trick is to leave your sails up and ready, even when it feels like the wind will never blow again. In the dance of our relationship with God, our role is to prepare the sail...to be ready...and to be willing to go...whenever and wherever the Spirit might choose to move us.