I’ve just come back from a week’s sailing course. It was exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure! Each day we learned various manoeuvres and skills, all while sailing along the Solent and visiting various harbours along the way.
The art of sailing is in large part, the art of working with the wind. The direction in which you sail and the speed at which you travel are determined by the wind – and by the way you co-operate with the wind. If you keep tracking with the wind you’re OK: but if you are not sensitive to the wind, or even try to work against the wind, you’ll be in difficulties.
It’s all about keeping in tune with the wind.
The worst thing you can do is to head straight into the wind, because then the wind cannot power the sails and you enter what is called the ‘No Go Zone’.
It’s called that because you are stuck.
The wind is blowing, but you made a wrong turn and the wind is no longer able to power you along.
The powerful, and sometimes unpredictable wind is of course a symbol that the Bible uses for the Holy Spirit (John 3:8). And the challenge of living as a Christian is to constantly adjust to the direction and speed of the Spirit: to sense his nudges, his direction of travel, to feel his force and adjust our lives continuously so that we keep in tune with him.
The life that we are rooted in a Christians is a dynamic ride driven by the wind of the Spirit. It is not static; not predictable; and sometimes not comfortable!
In fact I have come to believe that the more comfortable and predictable my life as a Christian has become, the more at risk I am.
I may be getting along OK. I pray, read my Bible, support mission, avoid the obvious and public sins (at least), and on Sundays I attend church. But inside I know that there is something missing. The wind is still blowing but somehow I’ve got stuck in the No-Go Zone.
As the song says: “there must be more than this”.
American pastor and author John Piper challenges us to continually seek the wind:
“What we should seek (and this applies to all Christians) is that God pour His Spirit out upon us so completely that we are filled with joy, victorious over sin, and bold to witness. And the ways He brings us to that fulness are probably as varied as people are. It may come in a tumultuous experience of ecstasy and tongues. It may come in a tumultuous experience of ecstasy and no tongues. It may come through a crisis of suffering when you abandon yourself to God. Or it may come gradually through a steady diet of God’s word and prayer and fellowship and worship and service. However it comes, our first experience of the fulness of the Spirit is only the beginning of a life-long battle to stay filled with the Spirit”.
Life in the Spirit, riding the wind of God. It’s a life’s work.
Push out of the No-Go Zone. Set your sails. Pray:
There must be more than this
O breath of God, come breathe within
There must be more than this
Spirit of God, we wait for you
Fill us anew, we pray
Fill us anew, we pray
Come like a rushing wind
Clothe us with power from on high.