In His tender watch-care, the Lord sent me a message in the wind.

In His tender watch-care, the Lord sent me a message in the wind.

I stood beneath the pine grove at the crest of the hill. Autumn leaves shimmied on the wings of the wind. Floating. Twirling. Submitting to the authority of the breeze.

Storm clouds pressed eastward leaving an October indigo sky in its wake.

I closed my eyes.

The crisp air blew against my face running its fingers through my hair. My world stood still, but for the wind. The gentle persuasion of the breeze continued. It wooed me. It beckoned me to remember my God.

A message of hope from the Lord.

A message of hope from the Lord.

Deep within me I heard His delicate whisper:

“‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ said the Lord of Hosts.”*

By My Spirit …

HIS Spirit.

I considered what the Lord was telling me. The Hebrew word for Spirit is ru’ach meaning breath, breeze, or wind.

There was a message in the wind.

Relentless spiritual battles had left me weary and worn. It was becoming more difficult to “count it all joy” — these trials of gut-wrenching magnitude. I had been trying to find my way through the difficult places in my own strength, my own wisdom, and my own way.

And not His.

I knew it and so did my God.

In His tender watch-care of a struggling child, the Lord sent me a message in the wind.

In that moment, I realized that almost as naturally as the wind blew against my face, the oppression lifted. My circumstances didn’t change — and still haven’t — but my spirit came alive again.

His message of peace reassured me.

His message of peace reassured me.

The breath of God breathed on me and returned joy and hope. The breath of God breathed on me, bathing me in His perfect peace.

And now I walked in that peace.

Beneath the pine grove.

With the fingers of the October wind tousling my hair.

The breath of God …

Like the autumn leaves shimmying on the wings of the wind, my spirit danced in the Presence of the Lord. His breath of life refreshing me, lifting me from the darkest pit.

With outstretched arms — there beneath the pine grove — I twirled and spun before the Lord, an offering of praise to the Giver of life.

Selah

*Zechariah 4:6