Breaking Windward

Bits and bytes and billboards, digitized signposts of a stressed and anxious society, offer little to the one desiring to come closer to God, the one seeking answers not for the moment but for a lifetime, an eternity. Those little Christian digital missives one sees everywhere and anywhere may strike a chord or even open a door, but to the hurting soul may rise to a description of disingenuous. It is hard to have a relationship with a billboard or an iPad. So, where is one to find peace, lasting peace, soul-resting peace, even perfect peace?

The Christian’s life is much like walking into a wind. A light breeze may be gentle on your face, the leaves rustle a soft tune in your ear. All seems well. Increasing, twigs on the trees will move in rhythm with the wind. Blowing more, full-chested trees sway and you take notice. Gusting up, large branches wave as though seeking your attention, beckoning you. Soon, the wind stiffens, and you lean into it as you walk. The harder wind demands more from you, and you begin to think, wonder, and contemplate each step forward. Leaning strengthens the walk.

A good wind causes you to lean, and this is what the Christian must do, lean into his faith as in the wind, into God’s word, into God Himself. Lean as though you are leaning against a stone wall. Lean against the One who is immovable, the One’s whose strength will sustain you not when the storm is over but during the storm. Leaning will give you peace in the One who was, is, and will be.

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” (Isaiah 26:3)

“Whose mind is stayed on you” is a leaning posture, a posture of mind, what suggestion offers as unceasing prayer. And moving past the bits, and bytes, and billboards, peace comes to those who lean, who by leaning know God is there, “a refuge… whose fidelity is an encircling shield.”

Never will the gentle breeze require of us what God desires from us. Never how hard we lean will suffice, rather on what. For as long as we are of a mind that within the bonds of our will the ability to calm ourself remains, to allay our fears and worries by effort, God in His nearness, will remain distant to us. When we begin to lean on Him, as distant as He seemed at one time, He comes close, He keeps. And the perfect peace we experience reminds us we belong to eternity.

In a world where opportunities exist to lean on everything and anything but God, should we not lean on the One who never changes? Should not we, when our faith finds its weakest point, turn to the One who lends strength, is strength?

Let us become the good sailor who breaks windward (sails against the wind) to reach his destination because he knows from where the wind comes.