|
“The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” (John 3:8)
My preaching professor asked us: “When you preach, do you expect your parishioners to change?” His answer was: “About the best you can hope for is that a few people might move just a few hairs on the dial without the blowing wind of the Holy Spirit.”
We tend to capture and tame and train God to our own liking, and put God in a box. We can’t box God in, but we can box ourselves out. We can’t fit God into our own box. It doesn’t work. Babies usually don’t choose to be born. They are given life, when they are “birthed” by mothers. The womb that has protected us, the old ways we have tightly held, will fall away.
Are you feeling isolated and alone? Is your life helplessly disrupted? Are you powerless and are you feeling overwhelmed by what happened to you? Is there no stability, nothing to hold on to? Don’t be afraid of your situation. Trust God and let the Spirit move you. As we endure birth-pangs, there will be blowing in the wind of the Holy Spirit and we become new beings.
Our God is present with us even in our wilderness. Crying out to God, we are opening our lives to God. When God enters into us and every part of us, beautiful new things might emerge on the other side of the wilderness. When our world falls apart and when we lose control, we are finally opening our lives to God and taking our place in the life of God. The blowing wind of the Holy Spirit opens our box and generates a new birth. Whenever people open themselves to the wind of the Holy Spirit, they can be changed in a positive way and for the better. God’s new creation starts in a crack in our soul.
Pastor Seok-Hwan
| 
