June 16th
Are You Living Against the Wine?
The other day driving down the highway and I could feel the pressure of the wind. It was really strong!! Soon, I approached a bird over to my right. There it was - fighting with all its might to "get ahead". In the past, I have also noticed at the beach birds "fighting" the wind. I laughed at one who was really flapping with all his (her) might. The bird was getting no where.
There is a picture in one of Wordsworth's poems of a bird that is swept from Norway by a storm. It battles against the storm with desperate effort, eager to get back to Norway.
But all is in vain, so at last it yields, thinking that the storm is going to carry it to death. But, however, the storm carries it to sunny England. England, with all its green meadows and its lovely forests.
I wonder how many times I have been like that little bird? You know, my friend, sorta like fighting against the will of God. Fretting over the direction that I seem to be "flying". It is like, "What I am going through is so rough and stormy that life will not ever be the same again."
But what I have learned (and am always in the process of) is that if I YIELD and quite fighting and recognize that this "storm" of my life had to first past through the hands of My Heavenly Father, then I get peace.
After I "land" I look back and say "Wow, this is even better than before. Why oh why did I fight so against it?" Let me take a verse completely out of context (1 Cor. 9:26) because the words are fitting.
"I do not fight like a man beating the air."
The often repeated phrase is "LET GO AND LET GOD".
My prayer for you:
Lord, I know that the winds of adversity blow hard against this one. Sometimes a breeze, sometimes a storm. But, I ask, in the name of Jesus, that they stop fighting against what you are doing and realize that you ARE DOING something with them. The end will be "green pastures".
Amen