Wind

As March approaches, those of us who live near the Bay have learned to expect strong winds, even Nor’easters, to buffet us, causing limbs to fall and bodies of water to overflow. One of the first things I was told, learning to navigate the waters of the Chesapeake, was to respect the wind. As I thought about these things, I realized how often wind becomes a major image in song, poetry, and the Bible.

One of my favorite songs is “Blowin’ in the Wind,” which Bob Dylan wrote in 1962. He rhetorically asks about war, freedom, and peace, ending each stanza with “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, the answer is blowin’ in the wind.” Turning to the Bible, I often see the imagery of the wind associated with the power and presence of God. I wonder if Dylan, even unconsciously, recognized God in the wind.

Amos 4: 13 acknowledges God’s creative power: “For lo, the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind, reveals his thoughts to mortals . . . –the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!” (NRSV). Similarly, the Psalms attest to God’s control over the wind. Psalm 135: 7 declares [God] “brings out the wind from his storehouses” and Psalm 107: 25 proclaims “For He commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea.” As we feel the wind on our faces, making forward progress difficult at times, or as we feel it nudging us from behind, I wonder if we take time to think of the power of the wind and its source.

Moses saw the power of God bring about the deliverance of the Israelites when he witnessed “The Lord [sweep] the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided” (Exodus 14: 21). Moses’s song contains these words: “The Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation” (Exodus 15: 2). That same wind brought destruction to the Egyptians by bringing the sea back together. The English romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley called the wind both “Destroyer and Preserver” in Ode to the West Wind. Where do we see a mighty wind, or act, of God providing a way for salvation or destruction?

Breath is often associated with wind in the Bible. One of the most striking examples of revival is seen in the valley of the dry bones--Ezekiel 37: 9-10: “. . .Thus says the Lord God: ‘Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ I [Ezekiel] prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.” Do I ever consider when I turn my face into the wind that God is breathing life into me? Perhaps I should take notice on my next walk on the beach.

In the New Testament, Matthew records that, as the disciples were sailing to the other side of the lake after a tiring day for Jesus, a storm came up that frightened them. Seeking rescue, they woke Jesus up. Jesus “got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was dead calm. They were amazed, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” (Matthew 8: 26-27).

God shows up in the wind! Do we fight against the wind? Or do we harness its power and use it? C. S. Lewis observed, “You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down.” We recognize God’s power by actively doing not passively lying down. Then we can learn to use that power, as singer/songwriter Jimmy Dean once said, “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”

Throughout the Bible we see the power of God displayed through images of the wind, bringing to us a sense of awe and respect. May we learn to use our sails in cooperation with the wind to achieve God’s will for us.