The Wind. Pay Attention:) Happy New Year!!



God is present.  God is presence.  God is in all things, around all things, and beyond all things.  God is alive, awake, active and moving…all of the time.  God is actually the most real reality there is.  We just can not fully comprehend, contain, or categorize God.  We are limited beings.  God is not.  So we often miss the presence of a loving unlimited God always around us, because we desire to understand God in our limited capacity.


Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.  He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”  Jesus replied… “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.” (John 3:1,2,8 NIV)


Like many of us, Nicodemus wanted to understand God.  He wanted a rational way to comprehend God.  He wanted an explanation that he could keep in his back pocket to access whenever needed.  Nicodemus desired a key to unlock all the mysteries of life.  Don't we all!?  So he went to Jesus at night.  Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.  There is nothing wrong with thinking rationally or scientifically.  It helps us more fully understand specific aspects of life.  However, it never completely captures an infinite and limitless God.  A God who more deeply desires experiential relationships with us rather than to be fully comprehended by us.


Jesus saw right through Nicodemus.  He knew that Nicodemus needed a rebirth.  Nicodemus needed to let go and change his perspective on life.  He needed to stop trying to fully understand a boundless God.  Jesus lovingly told him, 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.   No one can fully contain the wind.  No one is able to say that the wind starts behind the bush and ends at the lamp post.  However, everyone can feel the wind.  Everyone can see it move things.  All people can be caught up by its power.  In order to do so Nicodemus needed to move his understanding from his head to his heart.  Nicodemus needed to learn to pay attention to the movements of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus knows there is no trick.  There is no work to accomplish.  Instead it requires an openness to see through the eyes of relationship, hope, faith, peace, charity, sacrifice and love.  All of us can hear the wind that is already blowing on our doors.  The question is, WILL WE OPEN IT?


Opening the door is about paying attention.  Rebirth in the Spirit is less about doing something and more about awareness.  For some, opening the door to the wind of the Spirit is a huge transformation.  It can be a massive reorientation that changes the way all things are looked at in this world.  For others, the door may have already been cracked open or blown down a few times.  It can sometimes be more challenging to reorient one's priorities in life in order to pay greater attention.  Either way, it requires openness to being cultivated by the Holy Spirit.  It is not a work we accomplish.  It is a relationship we accept.  It is not a religious system we adopt, or a group of doctrines or teachings with which we agree.  Although many go down that path as well.  God's wind and wisdom blows where it chooses.  We can feel it, but never capture it.  


Personal reflection: 

I never understood the point of walking a labyrinth.  As I walked it, I would look down and try to figure out a pattern.  "Is this what I am suppose to do?" I wondered.  Then one time I remembered my director's advice, "Dan, Drop!"  That was her signal to me to move my awareness from my head to my heart.  So I tried as best I could to put away my thoughts and simply feel.  I felt the warmth of the sun on my cheek.  I marveled at the color of the leaves.  I felt the coolness of the breeze.  There is wisdom in simply experiencing the moment.  It is where God IS after all.  Later, I realized I could replicate that while in prayer, worship, singing, reading, writing, drawing or taking in any aspect of God's creation.  "Aha, this is a way of feeling and listening to the wind of the Spirit!"  


Today is God's Present!


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