“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, NIV).

     I am a planner. I write out in detail the lessons I will teach to a class. I map out the route to a destination with which I am unfamiliar on MapQuest. I prepare an itinerary of my activities
every day.

     The funny thing is that I often veer from my plans. I wind up talking in class about a tangential subject. A detour takes me by way of an alternate route to my destination. Or I accomplish a great deal of work by the end of the day, yet none of the endeavors on my to-do list were addressed.

     I am reminded of the Yiddish proverb. We plan. God laughs. I admit that I am prone to moments of attention deficit. But I also sense there is an additional influence working upon me each day. A kind of “meteorological” influence if you will.

     In John’s gospel, the wind is used as a metaphor for the movement of God’s Spirit. Like all other elements of the weather, wind cannot be controlled. It blows wherever, however, and whenever it pleases.

     So, too, does the Holy Spirit. Like a sailboat being pushed across the waves of an ocean, God’s Spirit often moves us in directions we cannot anticipate. While I might expect a brief trip out to the mailbox, the Spirit of God may lead me into a lengthy chat with a neighbor who recently discovered her husband has Alzheimer’s. I successfully retrieved the mail, albeit two hours later.

     I often hear people bemoan the idea that God has absented Himself from our world today. I don’t believe this spiritual characterization to be true whatsoever. Instead, I believe we too frequently move in a different direction from which God is moving. The reality is that following Jesus requires a good deal of flexibility, along with a heaping dose of humility.

     All of which is to say that when making your next plan, it seems advisable that in addition to keeping your eyes on the horizon, you also keep your nose to the wind. Even more, be prepared to tack your sails.