Of the Wind

Except... there's no sunshine today! *gasp*

Just white-grey clouds hovering over the earth. Bla! So incredibly uninspiring!

These type of days are the real reason that I started this blog: looking for those little things in life that make the grey-white days colorful and vibrant.

For instance, my youngest two siblings were out stomping on the huge piles of snow that have drifted in front of our former duck shed and found a vibrantly colored pheasant clucking around the pen. Enthusiasm, joy, shrieking with delight, the youngest rushes in "WE FOUND A PHEASANT! A LIVE ONE!!!"

So many times, I've sat on my bed or on the couch or in the rocker in our old craftsman style home, rocking back and forth, staring out the window at the white snow racing by on the wings of the wind, listening to it howl as it passes by, the cold air leaking in through the window cracks, wondering why on earth God has ever put a human being on this desolate plain.

The last week or so, I've been toldhow jealous some friend of mine are of the incredible weather. "You might think we're crazy..." Yeah, I do! In all honesty ;) Really! You've missed nothing but the sense of going nearly insane, listening to wind blow for hours on end, rattling the house, banging against the house - there is no peace!

Amidst the snow storm I've disregarded the beauty that can be found in it. As I look at the purpose of blogging, to more greatly appreciate the wild world around me, that mystery which continues to grab me by surprise reveals itself once more: how great, massive, wild and unpredictably powerful our Creator is, how powerful He's created this earth of Hie to be!!

How massive, sporadic, random-globe is His creation!

It's easy to see in a thunderstorm, lightening flashing all over kingdom come, from cloud to cloud, from cloud to earth, striking something occasionally and causing a streak of light to settle from sky to earth for split second; thunder bellowing from Heaven - angels or demons? Heaven or Hell breaking lose? I do believe it's Heaven - God's Heaven, thumping, clanging, thundering from Above.

Thunderstorms are the equivalent to strength, power, intensity, passion; they open up a flood of emotion, awe, wonder, terror, inspiration, desire, resentment all rolled into the peels of lightening and crackling of thunder.

But how about a snow-storm? How on earth? There are no terrors of the sky threatening to strike your home, showing themselves in an obvious way, revealing the Almighty's heavenly power in such striking ways...

It's much more settle, much more furious. It's white and grey.

Instead of thunder that causes the earth to tremble, wind howls like nothing else... it's incomparable. Some relate it to a train railing over head, but this doesn't come close to expressing the intensity and unrelenting noise that fill your head, hour by hour, minute by minute... sometimes lasting for a few days at a time... Mercilessly...

Wind, thirty, forty miles an hour, cold, desolate, termed by National Weather Service as "Arctic Wind." Not only does it's strength surpass that of branches, sometimes trees, bushes, plants... But it's power, it's freezing clenches grasping any living thing in it's path. Nothing can resist the cold grasp of the wind.

When it find you, it claws through all the layers you've put on - every one of them, grasping the core of your being, sending a chill down to your bones that cannot be shaken when it's present.

Much like the Almighty, but He isn't cold, only Just, Righteous, Pure, True, sending a chill to all that which is opposed to these qualities.

When He's present, He cannot be shaken, none can escape. He searches the earth for those who are setting out on the pilgrimage of seeking and living out, owning and living out Truth.

The strength of the wind, the strength of God.

Unrelenting, He'll fight for you, fight to get past the walls you put up in your life. Much like the wind fights against the walls of our warm, safe haven of a home.

Walls we each put up in our lives to keep us safe, safe from the danger of having to put others before yourself, having to share those things which are painful, which reveal who you really are deep down inside. Safe from having to give up yourself, to embrace Him who is above all else, which can only be done in its fullest when you surrender pieces of yourself, parts of your life; all of your in your whole entirity.

Like the wind that unceasingly wrestles against the walls of your home, the Lord never gives up, never surrenders in the fight for your soul.

He's as strong willed, unrelenting and hard headed as the wind. He won't give up. Never, ever. If you run away from Him, He'll look for you everywhere. He'll find you, "where did you go? Where are you? Why did you do this? Come out where I can see you. Show me all of you."

The intensity of the wind, the intensity of Yhwh.

When I woke up this morning, I didn't think for a moment that God could be likened to the cold-hearted wind, but as discussion increases, processing progresses and relationship is developed with those loved ones around me, it's very obvious that God is very much like the wind.

"The east wind carries him off, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place."

"Terrors overwhelm me; my dignity is driven away as by the wind, my safety vanishes like a cloud."

"The wind blows over it and it is forgotten, and its place remembers it no more."

"As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in the mother's womb,

so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things."

"See, the Lord has one who is powerful and strong. Like a hailstorm and a destructive wind,

like a driving rain and a flooding downpour, he will throw it forcefully to the ground."

"When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.

He sends lightening with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses."

"He who forms the mountain, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man, he who turns dawn to darkness,

and treads the high places of the earth-- the Lord God Almighty is his name."

"The wind blows wherever it pleases.

You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.

So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."