Contributed By: Rev. Mark Breese
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Pastor Mark is the Agency Minister and the VP of Ministry & Community partnerships at Community Missions.

Have you ever stood in a strong wind and leaned into it? You plant your feet, face the wind and then lean forward, let your center of gravity move out in front of your feet, and let the wind hold you up from falling forward.

I often have seen children doing this, their faces showing nervousness at first, then being filled with delight and wonder.

Children are small and light, and all it takes is just a stiff breeze for many of them to do this trick, to trust that the wind will hold them up. As an adult, it’s harder to do this trick. We are bigger and heavier. The wind needs to be stronger. But the joy is just as great.

In the middle of moments of struggle and stress that comes at us like a strong wind it is hard to move forward. It’s like waking into a wind that is hard enough to hold us up when we lean into it. These days, I am feeling like that more often than usual.

When that feeling comes, we can remind ourselves of the joy of trusting the wind to hold us up as it did when we were children. One of the ways that the Spirit of God is described is as wind that moves across the waters. As our strength seems to ebb away in the face of it all, when we start to lose our inner compass and feel off kilter, tilted and about to fall, in that moment we can rely on the Spirit of God to renew our strength. God never leaves us alone to navigate the random winds of life. The Spirit of God is constantly present to hold us up. Remember:

 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  Psalm 73:26

Pastor Mark