The wind blew. Coming from the west. It began out of nowhere. A soft breeze, a little swirling of the clouds. At first, the breeze didn’t seem to be a problem. A clean the leaves out of the flower bed breeze. Those are always good. It was a sun shining, breeze blowing, flag billowing kind of day. We remarked at the beauty. At some point though, things changed. The sky became a little ominous, from sun gold to gray, you know the look. The breeze picked up and it was wind storm watch. As the day progressed, the momentum of the wind picked up and we were at wind storm warning. The soft gentle breeze had turned to a wind advisory before we knew what was going on. Batten down the hatches, mates.
One thing I noticed about the wind storm was the sound. The wind usually pops over the mountain and flows right down Clock Makers Way. Like a child’s slide. You can actually hear it when it tops the mountain. Then as it flows down the driveway, gaining speed and filling all the empty space all around it sounds like a freight train barreling by our house. No kidding. The force of the wind was so intense I prayed our windows would hold as our curtains danced to the 66 mph tune.
The wind can be refreshing on a hot summer day. The wind can dry the saturated surface. The wind can sweep earth’s floor. I’ve often wondered if I opened my front and back doors on a windy day, if that could be considered vacuuming? The dirt wouldn’t be sucked up, it would just blow through.
It is a mighty force, though. The destructive forces of the wind are amazing. Things in its path are broken, uprooted, torn, ripped, fallen, crushed. We move our lawn chairs into the garage, we take down our flagpoles, we move our cars from under the trees, we try to build up, build around, and protect smaller outdoor stuff. But sometimes, there’s nothing you can do to prevent the damage, or is there?
See that tree there? It’s been there since we moved in seven years ago. It’s a great tree, or was. A big sugar maple momma. It did its part, it shielded that side of our house from the sun, and provided a cool sitting spot in the summer. It also provided a little protection from the wind. But, it was no match for the 66 mph song. Why not? Because it was rotten inside, soft. Oh, it didn’t look like it, it was beautiful on the outside, but decaying on the inside. It was not strong enough to withstand the winds. We had warning, over the last year or so, we had a branch down here, a crack in the trunk there. But, when the really strong winds came, it simply could not stand.
Just like trees on a windy day, life has destructive forces that can tear us apart and leave us broken, battered, sometimes limbless and cracked. Many are self-imposed, all are harmful. We are neglectful, decaying, sick in spirit and we simply can’t stand. When gale force blows a dying tree will break. There will almost always be warning signs.
I’m not a treeologist, I can’t tell you how to keep a tree from rotting, from decaying, from dying. I do know, without a shadow of a doubt though how we can keep from rotting, from decaying, from dying from the inside out. How? The right answer to everything, Jesus!
You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all.
John 11:25-26
See that? We don’t have to wait until the end to be alive! His resurrecting power is resurrecting us, right now. Do we live as Believers? Jesus told Martha, if you live like that, you are alive, you don’t have to wait to be resurrected to be alive. What’s that mean? We are to live inside like Believers. Not old, rotted wood, that may crumble at any time. Not like we’re just waiting for the next branch to fall. But live like we know whom we have believeth and are persuaded that He is able! Live as Believers on the inside, allowing His resurrection power to work in and through us. Doing so will enable us to sway to the winds of life that blow our way.
We are pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
2 Corinthians 4:8-12
The wind storms of life will blow us and we may lose a leaf here and there, a twig here and there, a branch here and there, but we will never perish. We may be bent but we will never break. Just as a rotted tree, has death working within it, so is an unbelieving life. We know what will ultimately happen to that tree. The evidence is above. It may not be an instant death, it may happen branch by branch. But we also know what will happen to a believing life, we will never die!