The Wind at Your Back

I love to ride my bicycle. I especially love to ride my bicycle at the shore. I can hop on it at our front door, and ride for 10-12 miles. There’s not much traffic. There are bike lanes in places, wide berms in others. There are sights to see—marsh, beach, even a lighthouse. And there is also wind—no hills to climb—but wind that, when you are pedaling, feels like a hill. During a recent ride, I found myself singing to myself a song, the words of which are that familiar blessing: “May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back.” And as I was pedaling, it occurred to me that in my rides at the shore, the wind is NOT always at my back. When I ride at the shore, my route is kind of like a giant oval, and so, for half of it, the wind is at my back, but for the other half of it, I’m going against the wind. If I wanted the wind to be always at my back, I would have to keep going the same direction. I could never turn back. And that struck me as a kind of metaphor. God blesses us when we bother to pay attention to the direction that the wind of God’s Spirit is blowing. Oh, sometimes in life, we probably have to pedal against the wind. Sometimes in life, we probably have to climb the mountain, but if life is nothing but a slog, maybe we need to pay better attention to the direction the wind is blowing. For God blesses us when we move in that direction, not turning back, but continuing to move in the direction that the wind is blowing—in the direction that God’s Spirit is carrying us.

--Pastor Don Steele