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Sunday, July 18, 2010

A Fresh Wind

This morning there was a sweet breeze coming through my kitchen window. Nothing stupendous in itself, but made a main event because of the hot, humid weather we have had lately. I so welcomed it! Every day seems to have threatened rain, and I would have been thankful it if it had rained for a day and a night, and lifted the oppression of the muggy weather. So to realize today that we had a repreive was a blessing.

As I stood by my kitchen sink, enjoying this little breath of fresh air, I thought how like the weather our lives can be. Oppression can creep up on us, whether caused by mood or circumstance. All of life's little details can drag us down and drain us of our energy. Like the humidity, feelings of being overwhelmed can bring us to a state of inertia, and we feel stifled and held captive by a sense of hopelessness and a fear of failure. All the negativity that we see and hear every day, from televison and newspapers and the next door neighbour can grind down our intentions to put our best foot forward and trust that God has a purpose in everthing.

Sometimes we wish that something, or Someone, bigger than ourselves would come along and whisk away all these things, and help us to make a fresh start. That's where the Holy Spirit comes in. Like the wind, He goes where He pleases. He can't be contained or controlled. We can't see Him, but we can see where He has been, because He always brings change. So we turn to Him, and seek His touch, His activity in our hearts and lives. He can bring refreshment, and a renewed sense of purpose for our day and our lives. He will speak to us in God's Word, or in circumstances, or in that still small voice, that Spirit to spirit witness that only He can produce. He is our Helper, just as Jesus promised. Breath of God, breathe on us!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

“In one sense the whole object of being a Christian is that you may know the love of Jesus Christ, his personal love to you; that he may tell you in unmistakable language that he loves you, that he has given himself for you, that he has loved you with ‘an everlasting love.’ He does this through the Holy Spirit; he ‘seals’ all his statements to you through the Spirit. . . . You believe it because it is in the Word; but there is more than that; he will tell you this directly as a great secret. The Spirit gives manifestations of the Son of God to his own, to his beloved, to those for whom he has gladly died and given himself.”

D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 7.1-8.4 (Edinburgh, 1973), page 61.