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My friends, welcome to autumn.  

The vibrant riot of summer has quietly faded, the stirring symphony of the growing season dwindling to a slower cadence.  At first the earth seemed to be undecided, balancing on the narrow knife-edge between summer and winter.  But all through September, the days have dwindled.  The evenings have come earlier, and the darkness has been thicker.  The grass has withered into crispy stalks.  The hay has been cut and the schools have resumed and the birds have flown south.  And now, on this first day of October, the signs of autumn are all around us.  This season is a breathtaking whirl of beautiful snapshots—painted leaves floating on quiet streams, the silvery arms of barren trees, the cries of the wild geese that wing southward in the crisp nights when the harvest moon scatters its magic over the earth.  

Yet ironically, in this enchanted season of such beautiful pageantry, the truest harbinger of autumn’s arrival is something you can’t see—something that captures my heart each year—the autumn wind.  

I’m not alone in my love for the autumn wind.  Just listen to what has been written about it:  

“Listen!  The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,/We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!” – Humbert Wolfe

“Wild is the music of autumnal winds/Among the faded woods.” – William Wordsworth

“The wind that makes music in November corn is in a hurry.  The stalks hum, the loose husks whisk skyward in half-playing swirls, and the wind hurries on.” – Aldo Leopold

These quotations provide a glimpse of the spirit of the autumn.  Yet what poet or playwright could truly capture the magic of the autumn wind?  

I certainly can’t.  Any attempt to distill it into crude words is simply stripping the magic away—capturing a rainbow and attempting to dissect it.  Even now, as I fumble for descriptions, only images come to mind.  Roaming the October woods and hearing the wild whistle and roar of the wind, until the leaves scatter around me in a snowglobe effect and the treetops roll and toss like a mighty ocean over my head.  Running homeward over fields and pastures in the dusky twilight, racing the wild wind, laughing for the pure joy of the season. Lying in bed on chilly fall evenings, warm and secure, yet hearing the deliciously eerie sound of the wind creaking and muttering around the corners of my house.  Common occurrences, everyday activities, yet glorified by the touch of the autumn wind.

This wind is a mysterious thing.  I’ve never glimpsed it.  I’ve never touched it.  I’ve never photographed it or captured it in a jar.  I’ve never analyzed it or traced it back to the unknown lands from which it comes.  But this I know—although I haven’t seen the wind, I’ve watched its effects.  I’ve been fortunate enough to stand in its path and encounter its mighty force.  And I’ve witnessed it usher in a whole new season—completing the transition from summer to autumn.

I don’t think it’s happenstance that Jesus compared the wind to the Holy Spirit.  “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8 ESV).   

Like the autumn wind, the Holy Spirit is mysterious—we can only begin to scratch the surface of all He is and does.  He is invisible—we cannot see Him go by or hear His footsteps or touch His form.  As with the wind, we know He is nearby not because we see Him, but because we see His effects on everything else.  In fact, the more we consider the aspects of the Spirit’s work, the more parallels we find between the third Person of the Godhead and the mysterious autumn wind.  

First of all, the Spirit breathes.  Just think of the first time we’re introduced to the Holy Spirit in Scripture, in Genesis 1:2.  “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (ESV).  Did you know that the word translated “Spirit” here is actually Ruach Elohim in Hebrew?  This literally means “the breath of God.”  This verse is a perfect reminder of the first aspect of the Spirit’s work—simply breathing over a person or situation, slowly beginning to bring God’s purposes to bear on what is unfolding.  Just as the Spirit hovered over the formless void at creation, He is also said to have hovered over Mary, or “overshadowed” her, when she conceived Jesus (Luke 1:35).  

I read these verses, and I imagine the Spirit as the autumn wind.  At the end of summer, before the season has fully begun to change, the wind rustles gently in the leaves.  It doesn’t at first manifest as a full-blown wind but simply a shift in the air, a faint stirring in the treetops.  Just like the autumn wind, the Spirit begins to whisper across the landscapes of our lives in small ways.  In fact, sometimes we aren’t even aware of His Presence; we might look at our circumstances and see no reason to believe that God is working.  But take heart!  The same God Who breathed order over chaos at creation is breathing hope and resurrection over the confusing areas of your life.  

Even better, we’re promised that the Spirit doesn’t just breathe; He also births.  Imagine the autumn wind again.  It doesn’t rustle in the leaves and then vanish, allowing the world to return to summer.  Instead, it remains and grows stronger and stronger until the season is brought to fullness.  This is the beautiful reality of the Spirit’s work in our lives:  what He begins, He will see born.  God leaves nothing unfinished (Philippians 1:6), so He doesn’t blow across a person’s life and then capriciously hop to the next project.  If you have felt the stirring of the Spirit in your life—however small—be encouraged to know that He will not be derailed from His plans for you!  

Lastly, the Spirit blesses.  Now, by this, I’m certainly not implying that He loads us with material abundance or guarantees our comfort and security or gratifies our every whim.  Instead, He blesses us by enabling us to do what we could not on our own.  The blessing of the Spirit is revealed by the development of His plans in our lives.

Just think again about the autumn wind analogy.  Did you know that the wind is responsible for many of the typical facets of autumn?  For example, the wind brings in cooler temperatures that stimulate leaves to turn colors—and then helps the trees shed those very leaves.  The wind also contributes to the development of equinoctial storms that usher in the characteristic fall climate.  In fact, the changing wind patterns in the fall even help birds along the migratory pathways—enabling summer residents to escape to tropical locales and bringing our fall and winter visitors back to Arkansas.  

From our perspective, these changes “just happen,” somehow unfolding all by themselves.  Yet it’s the wind, around and above and within it all, that is gently transforming the season into something magical.  

My friends, that’s how the Spirit works within our lives.  He breathes—stirring our souls.  He births—seeing His plans to completion.  And He blesses—producing the transformation in us that would be impossible without His guidance.  So, if the Spirit performs all of these roles, what is left for us to do?  I believe our response to the Spirit can be summarized in a brief statement:  stand in the wind.  

What if I watched the trees blowing in the autumn wind while sitting inside on my couch?  What if I read articles about the mechanics behind the wind flow?  What if I loudly proclaimed my love for the wind, and wrote poems about it, and drew pictures of pretty leaves blowing to earth, but I never actually went outside and stood in the wind?  Then my relationship with it would be shallow and meaningless, based not on experience but on hearsay, and my professions of love for it would be artificial.  

You see, if we want the Spirit to operate in our lives, we have to stand in the wind.  We can’t be content with listening to sermons, or reading devotionals, or talking about the Spirit to others.  To be sure, these are all excellent activities; however, they can’t replace a personal encounter with the Spirit.  The power and passion of the “breath of God” can’t be replicated.  

And the Spirit will not force Himself on us.  He won’t rush into our lives like an unstoppable gale, sweeping away all our resistance.  Instead, He might begin as a quiet breeze, a gentle stirring in the corners of our hearts.  The decision to allow Him to proceed further belongs solely to us.  We, and we alone, can choose day by day to give Him free rein to work in our lives. 

It’s autumn—the season of transformation.  The wind is blowing even now—chasing the scudding clouds, swirling the leaves like confetti, rising beneath the wings of the wild geese.  And day by day, it’s blowing in a new season.  Do you feel it?  Let’s believe today that the season is changing.  Let’s believe that the Wind is truly stirring.  And let’s give Him full rein to transform us until His Presence is a “mighty rushing wind” (Acts 2:2 ESV) across our hearts and lives.  

Did you enjoy this post? What are some other things in nature that remind you of the Spirit’s work? Let me know in the comments!

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