SPIRIT WIND

NATIVE AMERICAN WIND SYMBOL

SPIRIT WIND

“The wind gives our children the spirit of life.”—Chief Seattle

They say that God is in the wind and as a boy growing up in the windy mid-western Kansas plains I came to instinctively sense this. I was keenly aware of this especially as I hunted the prairie grasses for wild quail and prairie chickens while the ubiquitous winds carried them away ahead of me.  Jesus mentioned in John 3:8 (just before the well-known John 3:16 verse) that “God’s Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.” God made his presence known at Pentecost via a violent wind, fire, and his Holy Spirit.  However, when Elijah needed a message in 1 Kings 19 there was a great wind, an earthquake and finally a fire, but God was not in any of these.  Then God’s message came in a gentle whisper.  It’s up to us to be aware and many times to retreat from the chaos and noise of the world around us and simply listen humbly and quietly to the silence born on gentle breezes.

God has communicated to humankind over the centuries verbally, with angels, in dreams, and through His Son. Since the time of that revelation of himself over 2,000 years ago, he is more to be felt than seen.  I’ve been fascinated by Native Americans because I believe they lived a harsh but harmonious life out in God’s creation every day of their lives. They were convinced of the existence of a Great Spirit and the sacredness of the earth. They viewed winds as the personification of a divine messenger and an autonomous living force.  They observed the path of the winds to be this divine being sweeping through the land.  And they considered this being to be a counselor, a term that also defines the role of the Holy Spirit.  The Navajo, Apache and Hopi use a diamond shape to symbolize the powerful four-fold nature of the four winds: freedom, eternity, unity and balance.

It’s interesting to note that both the Hebrew and Greek words for wind, breath and spirit are the same. God breathed life into the first human beings. The air around us has been described as the kingdom of the heavens. We certainly can’t survive without it. Is it merely composed of natural elements like oxygen and carbon dioxide, or is there something more transparent and spiritual at work in this rarefied air?

When we’re out in God’s creation and enjoying the experience of the life he has given to us, we can begin to feel his presence. I believe God is in these winds more so than anything else in his created universe. And these caressing breezes provide a closeness for some of the most sublime moments in our life as a child of God.

In the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, the prophet had a vision of God leading him to a valley of dry human bones. The dry bones represented the hopelessly and spiritually dead condition of the people. And God told Ezekiel to prophesy that the breath of the four winds would come and breathe into those slain, that they might live. And life was restored as the bones rose up and lived again! Once God breathes His spirit back into a people, they will have new life! 

"Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me a truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.” – Native American proverb