As we enter the month of March, many people throughout the United States are eagerly anticipating the upcoming season of spring. Some of us have endured the hardship of a long, cold, and snowy winter. Along with the excitement of melting snow, budding trees, green grass, and picturesque flowers, comes one of God’s mysterious phenomenon forces of nature – the invisible wind, often associated with spring. God’s awesome wind may come as a calm, soothing, and refreshing breeze or as a mighty force of power.
The wind has a very active role in the word of God. Two words in the Bible, the Hebrew rauch and the Greek pnema, bear the basic meaning of wind but are often translated as "Spirit." Manifestations of God were often associated with the wind. When Job was at his breaking-point of suffering, and everyone had turned against him; God spoke to him out of the midst of a whirlwind. His response to Job consoled him reminding him that He has control over creation and everything that happens in it (Job 38:1-40:2). The Lord used a raging wind to catapult Prophet Elijah into heaven (2 Kings 2:1, 11).
When Jesus witnessed to Nicodemus, telling him he must be born again of the Spirit, he told him in John 3:8,”The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” On the day of Pentecost, we find God’s pnema in action. As the saints gathered together with one accord in the upper room, the Spirit of God came as a mighty rushing wind and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave utterance (Acts 2:1-4).
Allow God's wind to be prevalent in your life. He will calm you during times of trials and suffering, which is unavoidable for Christians, as he did with Job. Allow God’s wind to overtake you and fill you with his Spirit for ministering to those who are lost. As for the unbeliever, God’s Spirit will come over you like the invisible wind, once sins are sincerely repented of and Jesus is allowed to come into your life to be your personal Lord and Savior. Like Prophet Elijah, I'm looking forward to that day to be caught-up to meet the Lord in air with the mighty power of God’s invisible wind – His Spirit.
Deacon Jeff Howard
HTC Men's Department