Do you believe in signs? I do, definitely yes. Tonight I took our ATV for a solo ride. Today wasn’t good. Sure there were good moments, but the bad far outweighed and the realities of what is just feel so weighty and quite frankly sad. I drove to the top of our hill, turned off the engine, and tried to just be still. All I could hear were some cows in the distance, the wind and my thoughts. So very hard to be still but praise God for a perfect spot in which to try. What a beautiful evening to need a moment of solitude! I pulled out my iPhone and started reading where I last left off in my “daily” Bible reading plan that honestly isn’t daily. There it was:
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear it’s sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8
And I sat and listened to the gentle breeze that, if I had special-ordered it, could not have been more perfect—not too strong yet just strong enough to keep the gnats at bay. So it is with the Spirit and faith. We trust and know He’s there. Here. In our midst. In our struggles. In our pain. In our heart cries. Like the wind. We can’t see Him or touch Him. But He’s there.
I did petition the Lord for a sign. I was thinking maybe a deer. Thinking of the ram He sent Abraham to be sacrificed in place of Isaac. I had made plenty of noise so seeing a deer would be unlikely if not impossible. Well He didn’t send a deer. Or a ram, which if He had might have sent me to my maker!
But as I sat being still, I heard a buzzing sound. A bee? At this hour? It was already a quarter past 7 p.m. The sun had officially set though the pictures show a most beautiful painted sky as the sun was setting. It was really getting dark though. A bee in the evening? But there it was.
Working so VERY HARD. All alone. If I hadn’t been there on this night, who would have seen the bee working so hard? No one? God. This bee wasn’t working, navigating from flower to flower to flower, for trivial things or guilty pleasures, he was working for food, for a necessity and likely as part of a larger colony, his family. And it hit me all over again that the really hard work in which I find myself toiling, truly there is not a better word at this moment, but this work, this toiling, that at times seems to be for naught, IS worth it. I HAVE to do it myself.
My friends can’t take it for me, my parents can’t take it for me, my husband even can’t take it for me, people we’ve entrusted to walk alongside us to help our children can’t take it for me, no one on this Earth can take the toiling for me. But HE KNOWS. And He cares. And He rights. And He never slumbers. And He fights these battles that take place in the heavenly realms. And truly, I do believe that in the moments when we’re faced with choices such as screaming back at a raging child or walking away for a moment to collect ourselves, most definitely the enemy and his legions are there to pounce, to misdirect, to wreak havoc.
And the wind continues to blow. And remind us that the Spirit, God’s presence, is ever-present, all-knowing, so very faithful, righteous, righter of wrongs, encourager, head lifter … Lord, have mercy, I could go on and on. And Lord, please help me remember in those moments of havoc … that gentle breeze that flows eloquently and surrounds us in calm and comfort.