Grasping the wind

Sorry I haven’t written regularly in a while.  I’ve truly been at a loss for words.  I keep trying to make sense of the world around me and fail.  I keep trying to make sense of all the things going on in my own little world and fail.  It does feel sometimes that everything is chasing after the wind.  We just finished an overview study of Ecclesiastes with the girls and one of the things that I hadn’t realized is the wrong way I’d been looking at many of the verses contained inside.  I’ve always heard the verses ‘Everything is meaningless’ and struggled to make sense of it next to having a ‘Purpose driven life’.     Apparently though, the original Hebrew doesn’t use a word that implies meaningless in the way we often see it.  We just don’t have words for it in English.  It is a grasping of the wind, or smoke.  It is here one minute and gone the next; it is felt but cannot be held.  The smell can linger on our clothing, but we cannot control it.  It was something I needed to hear.  I keep trying to make sense of everything, but I can’t.  It doesn’t mean God doesn’t see the bigger picture.  It doesn’t mean that it’s meaningless.  I just might not be able to grasp it or manipulate it.  And that’s ok.  I prefer knowing that I’m not expected to know everything.  If I served a God that I could completely understand, what would that say?  If I could manipulate all of life’s outcomes, what would that mean?

Ecclesiastes 6 12 In the few days of our meaningless lives, who knows how our days can best be spent? Our lives are like a shadow. Who can tell what will happen on this earth after we are gone?

After writing this, I went outside to pray for my neighbors.  I didn’t spend as much time prayer walking as I’d first planned because as I approached the mailboxes, I saw keys dangling from one of the boxes.  I tried to first take them to the office, forgetting that it’s only open MWF so I decided to do the next best thing and I tucked them inside the box number they’d been in and closed the door hoping the rightful owner would look inside.  I left the house and spent time with a friend of mine, and we talked about the heaviness of this year.  I shared with my friend that yes, this season is hard, but others will come that will have joy again.  People search for meaning in money, status and business but at the end of the day, those things will pass away.  What we must strive for is seeking to obey God.  If we are following His path, that is what’s important.  I was excited that she seemed to understand me as we discussed this in a mix of English and Arabic and the keys slipped my mind….   …at least until I returned and drove past a man near the mailboxes looking around and digging through the trash can (placed there for all the junk mail).  I asked him if he was looking for something, already knowing the answer.  When he told me what mailbox was his, I told him to look inside it.  He was so excited and started telling me the story of his day and hugging me.  I feel bad because he was out the money for the Uber ride he had to spend to come back to search for them, and yet I also feel like God was answering my morning prayers.    I want to form relationships with our neighbors that point them to God.  I want to demonstrate God’s love in a very real way.  And yet, this was something I could have never orchestrated.  The timing of either was not a chance (though there’s no telling how long he’d been back searching before I pulled up).  I don’t know what this encounter will lead to, but I’m praying now that it will open the door to more meaningful conversations.  Wind can’t be caught, or controlled, but it can be harnessed.  Tommy mentioned a rudder recently that best steers a moving ship and wind can provide that movement if our sails are up and ready.  I want God to direct my movements and I know He’ll even give the wind.  I’m in the boat and my sails are up.