Winds of Change

Well done to those that answered the riddle posed from yesterday. It is true that a year is in fact shorter than a day on Venus. So go for the year and make $2 million. If you're looking for a direct deposit on your prize money, just send me your bank account number and I'll deposit it for you.

Tonight's new riddle is called "The Pope Has It". Here it is: The Pope has it but he does not use it. Your father has it but your mother uses it. Nuns do not need it. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a big one, Michael J. Fox's is quite small. What is it?

One of the things that I enjoy doing from time to time is what I guess I'll term "Bible Hunting". Now, this isn't me going around trying to see where I can find bibles, but rather, taking something and seeing what I can find in the bible that relates to it. Being the fan of music that I am (I'm listening to some right at this moment as I type this), I like to take some of the Christian bands that I frequently listen to, take some of their lyrics, and see if I can find any of them within the bible. Some of them help me out and give the references for where they got the inspiration for certain songs. Others do not. Tonight I felt like doing some bible hunting.

I pulled a band that is extremely impressive in terms of taking something directly from the bible and incorporating it in to a song that they write. The song that they wrote they titled "Dive" and referenced Isaiah 40:31 which says, "but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint". If you look to the rest of that particular chapter, it is essentially God telling his people not to worry because He is there for them and looking out for them. It tells of how God is in control over everything, and that there is nothing that is able to overcome the Him. It really is powerful reassurance.

The song, for me, that came to mind when I read that verse, however, is a completely different one, which is where the title of this post comes from. The group is Kutless. Here are the lyrics:

Can you feel the pains in life?
Wrapped Around you like they're chains
Restricting all your dreams
Do you wonder if there is a way?
A way to set you free, set you free

Chorus:
So tell me all your dreams
Tell me all your fears and what you're longing for the most
It's not another way that'll end up the same
For it's under my control

Do you feel the winds of change?
Soon this weight will fall away
And take you to a place
Only found through these winds of change
A breeze that's new and free, new and free

I'll be the one who you can cry to
The one who will give you wings
I will give wings, someday we'll sail away
Mounted up on wings like eagles
We will run and will not fade away

Given my relatively young age, verses like the one preceding the one I quoted, which states that youths grow weary and young men stumble and fall, is a good reminder to me that, regardless of how I might feel on any particular day, I can not survive all of life's trials on my own. Everyone, at some point in their lives, will have times when they will need more than their own abilities and strengths to get by. And regardless of the situation that you encounter here on Earth, everyone can know that God is there for them. "He will not grow tired or weary...He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak" is what we're told in verses 28 and 29. And if one cannot take comfort knowing that God will empower us whenever we are weak or weary, then we are missing part of the nature of God, as well as misunderstanding the nature of being weak.

Physical weakness, while easily understood and recognized, does not (usually) bring one to the point of realizing that more than just the individual is needed to succeed. Spiritual brokenness brings true understanding of what God is seeking in us each and every day, and this is what will bring us into a better relationship with Him. If we can realize that we cannot succeed on our own and that we desperately need God to get us through, he will be there in an instant, since all we need to do is ask for help. God has the power to bring that second wind, to give that extra energy, to be the one urging us on. And no matter how much He has to help, and no matter how many times he has to help us pick ourselves up, He will never grow tired or weary. Once that recognition occurs, things can only get better. The winds will indeed change, and we will soar like eagles.