Winter here in the northwest corner of the Lower 48 trumpets its return with strong, prevailing southerlies arriving in impolite, unwelcome belches. The well-behaved summer zephyrs carry seeds and spores that produce our plants, flowers and magnificent forests of evergreens.

On August 25, 2017 Hurricane Harvey howled through Houston, leaving scores dead and $180 billion in damages. The Category 4 beast is America’s costliest natural disaster.

Long ago God wrapped the earth in a blanket of wind after Noah’s flood, forcing the waters to recede and dry land to reappear. Then there’s Jonah who resisted God’s assignment to go to Nineveh by hopping a ship bound for Spain. The Lord caused a whale of a wind to churn up the Mediterranean, jeopardizing the vessel, prompting the crew to feed Jonah to the fish.

Some 2,000 years later Jesus was approached one night by one of Israel’s religious leaders. In explaining the necessity to be “born again,” Jesus likened the Holy Spirit’s life-saving activity to the wind.  We can’t see it.  We can only see how it affects its surroundings.

Does what’s visible about your life resemble the sinful toll of a tornado or the soothing breeze of God’s forgiveness?  The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.

"For behold, He who forms mountains and creates the wind And declares to man what are His thoughts, He who makes dawn into darkness And treads on the high places of the earth, The Lord God of hosts is His name.”  Amos 4:13