Heart Tracks - Against The Wind

     In 1971 a Scotsman named Chay Blyth did something never done before.  He sailed around the world going against the prevailing winds and currents.  He completed his journey in 292 days and upon his return to England, 6000 people, including much of the royal family was on hand to welcome him.  This may have been a nautical first, but it's not a spiritual one.  Each of us, no matter what we think of spiritual things, of God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, lives out our lives walking against one type of wind and current or the other.  For  some, the end of it will be victory and celebration.  For so many others, it will be destruction and sorrow.  We will live either against the wind and currents of the kingdom of this world, or against that of the Kingdom of heaven.  Both will involve much trouble, but the trouble of the first will only bring us low, whereas the trouble of the latter will continue to lift us ever upward to and with Him.  We will live as Jonah did, always running and hiding from God, or as Paul did, always moving deeper and deeper into Him.  Both journeyed against the wind, the grain of a kingdom.  Jonah against the Kingdom of God, and Paul against the kingdom of this world.

    We see in Jonah where the Father gave a message to Jonah for the city of Nineveh.  He was to go there and bring the message of repentance and the offer of God's forgiveness to them.  Instead, he fled in the opposite direction, towards Spain, seeking to escape the Father's will and desire for him, and for all that He wished to do through him.  What he encountered was a storm that threatened to tear his vessel of escape apart, being cast adrift into deep waters, and eventually, life in the darkness of the belly of a fish.  Eventually he agreed to obey His call, though without a whole heart.  As far as we can tell, the end of his story leaves him joyless.  Lack of joy and lack of life, these are the end for everyone who chooses Jonah's way, the way that goes against the wind, the grain, of the Kingdom of God.
    Paul, on the other hand, embraced the call and life of the Father in Christ.  That way took him on a path that walked against the raging winds and currents of this world.  He had constant opposition, even hatred.  He too suffered shipwreck and being adrift at sea.  He knew the prison cell, the pain of being beaten, ridiculed, misunderstood, even stoned and left for dead, and perhaps he was dead. If so, the Spirit of God raised him up to continue on his journey against the wind.  For him, there was no great celebration, no throngs to greet him.  Not in this world anyway.  Yet, his journey against the wind only served to lift him higher, as it does the eagle, into and ever deepening, greater relationship with Christ.  Chinese church leader Brother Yun wrote, "We shouldn't pray for a lighter load to carry, but for a stronger back to endure.  Then this world will see that God is with us, empowering us to live in a way that reflects His love and power.  This is true freedom."  This is a life lived against the wind.
   Which wind and current do you walk against today?  The current of the world, or the Kingdom?  Which grain are you living against?  To go "against the grain," means that a piece of wood is being planed in the wrong direction.  The result will be that the surface will tear, rather than lie smoothly.  Living against the grain of the Kingdom of God will only result in the tearing apart of your life and all that involves that life.  To live against the grain of this world will bring trouble, likely lots of it.  It did for Paul and even moreso for Christ.  Yet the result will be a smoothness of His Spirit and life that will empower us on the journey, bringing healing and wonder through our lives.  The applause of the world will never be ours, but the applause of heaven, of the nail scarred hands of Christ, will be.  Is the current you walk against today taking you there?

Blessings,
Pastor O