Windy day

Outside my window, the trees and bushes are thrashing around. Looks like they’re being violently shaken by an unseen hand. It’s the wind, of course. It reminds me of what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3, but we’ll leave that for another day.

Today it’s just striking me how much power there is in the wind. Nothing new in that of course. We’ve been using this power since ancient times to grind grain, pump water, propel ships and more. Lately we use it to generate electricity. On the other hand, even if it hasn’t ever impacted us personally, we’re aware that the wind can be devastatingly destructive.

In my version of the Bible the wind is referred to 159 times. That’s quite a bit. Mostly the point is that God is in control of it. It has a force we can feel and use, but we can’t control it. He can, because He is so much bigger than it is.

There are other powers. There’s the thermonuclear furnace that we call the sun—which in fact drives the wind, by means of the sunlight that never ceases to shine on our planet. Our minds have a really hard time getting around the immensity of the power in a star. But God is vastly bigger than that. He made it, and all the other billions of galaxies full of stars.

One night when Abram was going through a hard time spiritually, he asked God how he could know that God’s promises would actually be kept. God told him to leave his tent and go outside. Abram did, and God said, “Look at the stars.” Abram did, “And he believed the LORD, and He counted it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:1-6)

There is power in the immense, but there is also great power in the miniscule. Atoms are held together, and those atoms join with others to form molecules—and everything we can see, hear, touch, taste or smell is made up of molecules. In a complexity that boggles the mind, the interactions of atoms and molecules form all matter, all life. The laws that govern how it all works come from the Creator God, who is vastly bigger than all of it.

Every one of us experiences times when, like Abram, we have a hard time believing. God’s answer to him works for us too: Go outside—preferably out of a city. Look at the night sky or a mountain or a tree. Feel the power in the sunshine and the wind and the texture of a leaf. Think about the One who made it all, who is vastly bigger than what we can even imagine—and yet who pays attention to every detail. Including everything about each one of us: “Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” (Luke 12:7)

A starry night reassured Abram. A windy day is reminding me: “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46:10)

Love, Paul