by Pastor Mark Downey

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 4:12-14

From time to time artists have what they call burn out, authors get writer's block and preachers suddenly become uninspired.  Hopefully, one aspiring for the epiphanies of life will get their second wind during momentary lulls.  It hasn't happened to me, but I sometimes wonder what's next; how do I maintain the momentum. Sometimes, after I do a series like 'Dissident Racism' I feel sapped of energy, because it's so time consuming and intensely focused and I want to serve the brethren as best I can; I try not to make too many mistakes.  After the last series of messages, as usual, I waited for a new subject to pop in my head and is most often in the form of a title.    In the church world, you hear a judeo say “the Lord gave me a word” and it's usually a long-winded, self serving dialogue that is better said in the Word itself.  It makes me wonder why are people reinventing the Gospels.  Well, I can honestly say the Lord gave me a word last week, but it wasn't a rambling of religious prose, but was literally just one word and that word was “wind.”  For several days I ruminated what to do with this word.  What does wind have to do with anything?  And then I got to thinking what is the cause of wind in the first place?  Did you know there wouldn't be any life on earth without wind, and conversely can also bring death?  Ironically, the previous week, I was engaged in a project to build a wood shed, because every year I just cover my firewood with tarps and it's always a hassle, especially when it snows.  The recurring theme in my thoughts was that I need to built it so the wind doesn't blow it over and I figured the best way to do that is to have it well anchored.  Now I am not a carpenter, but I got the job done, Lord willing the creek don't rise or a gust of wind thinks it's a sailboat.   

No wind, no waves... a big bummer for surfers.  What most people don't think of is that an ocean wave cannot begin without an action.  Same with a glass of water on a table; it is still until you blow on it to create a ripple.  Wind on water causes movement, creating energy that otherwise was not there before.  In life, most people have ambition, purpose driven goals symbolized by a body of water.  In fact, many worldly religions have a set of classical elements found in earth, water, wind and fire with their respective deities.  These ancient concepts were believed to be the most essential principles upon which anything can exist, which science would later compare to solids, liquids, gases and plasma.  In the first couple of verses in Genesis, these four elements were created by God; no need for lesser gods symbolizing each element.  As we shall see later on, verse 2 most closely resembles wind i.e. “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.