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A WINDY DAY IN UTOPIA

 It is a windy day here in Utopia. As the sun rose this morning the wind came and blew some rain into our lives. Then as quick as it fell it vanished, but the wind kept blowing. Wind is like that, I guess; it has "a mind of its own." Whenever I hear the wind blowing through the trees, God's word comes to me. Two special passages I keep close. The first text finds David surrounded by Philistines. With God's help David has won a small victory against those old pagans, but Philistines never give up easily, so David still has a problem with these enemies of the Lord.

            "Now the Philistines came up once again and spread themselves out in the valley of Rephaim. When David inquired of the Lord, he said, 'You shall not go directly up; circle around behind them and come at them in front of the balsam trees.'" (2 Sam. 5:18-23). That's the setting for a remarkable thing, a sound, a memory, a reality beyond our modern sophistication. There is Something Unimaginably Great behind what our science can analyze, transcending every earth-bound explanation: "It shall be, when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then you shall act promptly, for then the Lord will have gone out before you to strike the army of the Philistines" (2 Sam. 5:24).

            On that day Yahweh and David fought together against those wicked men and won a decisive victory. So on this bright blue October afternoon in Utopia, Texas I'm hearing the Lord's armies blow through the pecan trees and it's a sound that always recharges my faith in a mighty God, an eternal Father I've never seen, but I know He's here!

            Fast forward in time now to a man named Jesus, fully man, yes, but also the Timeless One. He talks with an unusual Pharisee, not so bound to the Pharisee way, not so full of himself. There is none of the characteristic condemnation, no trace of the predictable self-righteousness-just a desire to know Jesus better. "God must be with you, Teacher. Tell me more about it!" (John 3:2).

            Ever the Teacher, Jesus gives Nicodemus more than he could have imagined, a new way of life, thought, action, language. "If you want to know Me better, you must be born again-born anew, born from above-born of the water and the Spirit" (John 5:3-5). "If you want to know Me better you must embrace this new reality-you are a spiritual being and if you want to know Me you must not be amazed at this" (John 5:6-7).

            Jesus knew that His people would hear their trees moving in the wind. He knew it would help them, so He gives us one of the most perfect "play on words" ever created. "The wind (spirit, pnuema) blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).

            As David experienced it in ancient Israel as he learned to surrender his heart to his God, so it is with every person today willing to surrender their hearts to Jesus in baptism, the new birth, "born of the water and the Spirit" (John 3:5), "the washing of water with the Word" (Eph. 5:26), "the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5). As with every birth, it is just the beginning; you don't know very much and even if you keep growing for decades you still feel like "a novice," but you know He's here with you-and that's all that really matters. Listen carefully to the wind in the trees.                                   

                                                                                                                    Eric C. Whelchel




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