Jonah 1:4
“But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.”
Wind is something you either like or dislike. In the cold of winter the wind can be the adversary that makes the cold seem to go right through you and in the hot of summer it is the opportunity to refresh one from the heat of the day. Wind, to the pilot, can either be the adversity that slows down a trip or causes a bumpy flight or it can be the opportunity to help the plane take off and rise above a cloudy or stormy day. The winds one faces in life’s circumstances are either adversarial or opportunities.
Jonah must have seen the winds as an adversary. The winds he faced caused the ship he was on to be caught in the middle of the storm. It is amazing that the adversarial winds caused Jonah to go into the bottom of the ship and fall into a deep sleep. Instead of using the adversarial winds as an opportunity to show his ship mates the power of His God, he instead let these winds lull him to sleep and missed using the opportunity for the glory of God.
On the other hand, there were many other people in the Scriptures who took the adversarial winds and turned them into opportunities to show the power of God. I think of the Apostle Paul who took the adversarial winds and used them to show those on his ship and those on the island called Melita the power of His God. There was Peter in the boat with the rest of the disciples facing the winds when Jesus told him to come to Him on the waters. It was the winds that gave him the opportunity to walk on the water to go to Jesus. The Scriptures are filled with stories of people using the wind to show God’s power to a lost world.
Everyone is going to face adversarial winds in life, but your heart will ultimately determine whether they stay adversarial or become opportunities. If your heart is not right with God, then you, like Jonah, will complain about the winds and be lulled to a unspiritual sleep and miss the opportunities to show the world the power of God. Instead of complaining about the winds in life, you should be calling on God in those winds and asking Him to show you what He is trying to do through your life. Too many Christians complain about the adversarial winds and miss the great opportunities that God has for them.
A heart that is right with God will take the adversarial winds of life and turn them into opportunities to rise above the circumstances to see the power of God. The one thing Jonah missed in these winds was that God prepared the wind; however, God prepared a wind for Moses and parted the Red Sea. The winds you face in life are prepared by God and can become opportunities to see the miraculous if your heart is right with Him.
What are you going to do with your adversarial winds? Are you going to allow them to lull you to an unspiritual sleep and complain about them, or are you going to let them help you rise above the storms of life and see the power of God work through you? It all comes down to your heart. If you have a heart for God, then you will ask Him to help you rise above those circumstances and to use your adversarial winds for His glory. Let your adversarial winds be God’s opportunity to work greatly through your life.