It seems like we’ve had an exceptionally windy Spring. Maybe I just forget from year to year how windy Spring is. I really don’t enjoy the wind. I don’t mind a breeze, but what we’ve been experiencing lately doesn’t really fit under that category. A while back I came across a Bible passage that got me thinking about the wind a little differently. Psalm 104:3-4 tells us that God “rides on the wings of the wind” and “makes winds His messengers.” I realize that this is poetic language, but the concept of God’s sovereign control over the wind (and all of creation) is found throughout the Bible.
Psalm 148:7-8 speaks of the stormy winds fulfilling His word. The prophet Jeremiah gives the following message not only once, but twice: “But God made the earth by His power; He founded the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When He thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses” (Jer. 10:12-13, 51:15-16). I love this picture. Can you imagine God selecting Wind #12,562 off of the shelf for 4:00 tomorrow afternoon?
The wind reminds us of our own weakness. When my daughter was in grade school, she brought home a book with a tall tale about a man who tried everything he could think of to stop the wind, without success. We can’t stop the wind, and we can’t make it blow. We don’t even understand it. As Jesus said during his conversation with Nicodemus, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going” (John 3:8).
The wind reminds of how temporary everything on earth really is. Psalm 103:15-16 tells us, “The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field. The wind blows over it and it is gone.” In the aftermath of a tornado or hurricane, not much is left but rubble. Possessions of a lifetime can be gone in a moment. The wind can and will take away many things on this earth, but it cannot take away eternal things. Our hope must be in the eternal and unshakable treasures of Heaven.
Throughout the Bible, God used the wind to carry out His plans and to display His power, His presence, His provision and His protection.
- When God spoke to Job after Job questioned all the hardship that God had allowed in his life, it was out of a whirlwind (Job 38:1). Somehow, amid the chaos and spinning of the wind, God reminded Job of His sovereign rule over all creation.
- It was wind from God that dried up the floodwaters for Noah and all his cargo (Gen. 8:1).
- The Lord sent an east wind that brought a plague of locusts to Egypt, and a west wind that removed them after Moses prayed (Ex 10:13,19).
- It was by a wind that God made a dry path through the Red Sea for His people (Ex 14:21).
- A wind from the Lord provided quail to the Israelites in the desert (Numbers 11:31).
- In the New Testament, the gift of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost was accompanied by the sound of rushing, mighty wind (Acts 2:1).
Probably my favorite story involving the wind is the one where Jesus rebuked the wind and it stopped blowing immediately, resulting in a great calm (Mark 4:39). This was during a storm that caused the disciples (seasoned fisherman) to be fearful for their very lives. Suddenly the focus of the fear changed from sheer panic to a holy awe. Luke 8:25 tells us that “they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commandeth even the winds and the water, and they obey him?”
Like the disciples, I sometimes need a new perspective. When I feel frustrated and frazzled as the wind continues to howl day after day, I need to think about what missions God might be sending His winds on and what messages they are proclaiming. I need to focus on the One who commands the winds, and remember that they obey Him. Though I don’t like these winds, they are under His control, and it is His voice that will calm them. Whether a literal wind or the “winds” we encounter throughout our lives, we can be confident that He is there, “riding on the wings of the wind.”