Encouragement

Wind of His Spirit

by Mary Thomas
08/16/20
Not For Sale
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Power of His Spirit

 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Luke 11:13

The day was bright and sunny, the water glistening, catching the sun’s rays. It was a beautiful scene and I settled down in my chair to watch the world go by. As I sat there on the beach watching the boats sail by I noticed one boat that didn’t seem to be going anywhere. It was a windy day, and the incoming tide was causing the sea to move fast in many different directions. This particular boat had the sails up but was being buffeted by the strong wind, at times going around in circles, at other times drifting aimlessly. I watched the other sailing boats, some with sails up some with their sails down, but they were charting a course through the choppy sea, heading out of the channel into the open waters, seemingly with no difficulty.

I was wondering what was wrong with the boat, had it lost its power? Then I realised, these other boats had their motors running. They were powered up and therefore had no problems cutting through the water.

As I sat there watching, I felt the Spirit within me use this as a visionary aid to remind me about the power of the Holy Spirit within all those who love and serve the Lord.

We have His Holy Spirit always with us to guide us and strengthen us enabling us to live this life with His help, keeping us on His path. We can have the appearance and the knowledge of knowing God, we can even carry on our lives believing and knowing He is with us, but if we haven’t asked for the power of His Holy Spirit to fill us each day we can end up doing things in our own strength getting weary and heavy laden as we attempt to live this Christian life. We can be tossed around, just like that sailing boat, without direction or power just because we have not asked for God’s infilling of His Holy Spirit. 

It seems such an easy thing to ask for each morning, asking God to fill us and enable us to live through the power of His Spirit, but in fact it is a very powerful request, and can make an enormous difference to our day in whatever we may face. It also reminds us of our reliance on God’s help, we can’t live well without His enabling and He promises to give us all we need. In fact, He is very eager to do so.

I was thankful for this reminder, and aware that I so often forget to pray for His Holy Spirit to fill me afresh each day.

 I watched the sailing boat on and off for a few hours, and maybe it was intentional that the motor was not running. Maybe there was something they needed to learn through working with the sails. As I packed up to go home the boat had disappeared from view, the tide was in and I was leaving the beach with another teaching from My Father to think about and more importantly to put into practise.