If you fear the Lord and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the Lord your God—good! But if you do not obey the Lord, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your ancestors. (1 Samuel 12:14-15)
I ran on a local track before church on a cold February morning. On the northbound straightaway was a strong headwind from the northwest. The wind was so cold that it was physically painful and it held me back.
But on the southbound straightaway, by the home team’s stands, a strong tailwind pushed me—I started to gloat about how fast I was running, because I did not really feel how much the wind was helping me.
My cold run on the track gave me a picture of what it means to walk with God or resist God.
The headwind and tailwind reflect two different heart attitudes. To live in obedience to God is to live being pushed along by a grace-filled tailwind. But my experience on the track suggests a warning: it’s easy to forget that God is pushing me, and to take the credit for myself for doing well.
To rebel against God is to run into a very strong headwind. I wish that when we do this in real life, it would be as quick to be felt as I felt it on the track. But, since we can unfortunately be rather pig-headed, sometimes we start to get a hardened heart, and we begin running into the headwind, often without even realizing that we are doing it. I am thankful, though, that God shows us mercy. He loves us enough to give us a shout of warning that we are running into the headwind. And…… That means we can stop and turn around and start to run with the tailwind— we call this repenting!
Running on the track, I was forced to run into the headwind half of the time. But, in our walk with the Lord, we can pray “Lord, I always want to run with the tailwind, and do warn me quickly if I start running into the headwind.”
How are you doing? Are you running with God’s tailwind today? Or do you need to repent and do a quick turn around?
Kenny B's World 