The wind in my sails

I read an analogy today about sailing and the Holy Spirit (from "The One Year Daily Grind," by Sarah Arthur).  She was describing how, when at a summer camp one year, her team practiced team-building by getting into a canoe and paddling around Lake Michigan.  They paddled for hours, made little progress, and by the end of it were exhausted.  But then a breeze came up, and they hoisted a makeshift sail by tying a length of canvas to an oar and standing it up in the boat.  As the wind caught them up, they rested from rowing and drank in the details, reveling in the glorious speed that they now had.

What a wonderful picture of a healthy spiritual life!  Sometimes I feel like I'm paddling my canoe upstream along the river of life - always working, without a moments' relief, exhausted, hurting, and numb.  But I want to be a sailboat.  I want to speed along in life, propelled by the breathe of the Holy Spirit, not constantly struggling to succeed.  Sure, the wind may be unpredictable sometimes - it may storm, and howl, and perhaps take me somewhere that I don't want to go.  But in the end, it's better to be propelled into unfamiliar territory by Someone who knows what He's doing, than to struggle in the same place on my own.  What a wonderful not-so-coincidental coincidence that the Hebrew word for Spirit is also translated as wind and breath :).  Don't struggle paddling uphill.  Let Him breath into your sails.

John 6:61-65

 ⁶¹ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶² Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! ⁶³ The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit^[e] and life. ⁶⁴ Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵ He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”