Boxed...

Pneuma. The Greek word literally means spirit or wind. The great sweeping wind that blows through your kitchen window on a spring day, scattering the mail and the kids’ school papers, while reducing your neatly ordered life to chaos. What a fitting metaphor for God’s presence.

The writer of the New Testament book of Acts seems to agree. He uses the word pneuma in chapter 2, verse 2 when he writes, “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.” Think about that image for a moment. After Jesus ascended into heaven, his followers gathered together in the upper room of a building and prayed for direction. As they sat trying to determine how to carryout the ministry Jesus had begun, a wind blew through the house, reaching into every dusty corner of their lives.

On Sunday, Andy Rainey talked about how we like to compartmentalize our lives into nice, neat boxes. Work goes in one box, social life another, and God in still another. Whether we act like this because of fear, or a need to be in control, the result is the same. We stifle God. You can’t box the wind.

Jesus said, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) Like the wind, the God who spoke the universe into being will not be relegated to a minor role in our lives. He wants to blow through the entirety of our existence, upsetting our neat piles and turning our thoughts towards him. But just as our God refuses to live in a box, he also refuses to force his way into our lives. The final decision resides with each of us.

Are you willing to open the window?