The wind whistles loud and clear
It’s howling hell for me to hear
“You can move with me or against me
But you can never move without me”
The wind only whispers some days
Echoing Hell’s hounds that just blew away
It has the power to shatter the glass walls
That make me feel safe in the halls
‘Tis a force to be reckoned with, I know
And I reckon we’re comparable foes
For as long as I have the strength to stand
I will surely have the upper hand
My fight with the wind will forever be
When forever ends, the victor is me
I wrote this on a cold night at the Air Force academy. I had just come from walking across the terrazzo. It’s always windy up there. When I was going to sleep I could hear the wind whistling and howling in the railing above my room. It was louder than ever before. This poem, however, represents much more than a lack of sleep from an annoying noise.
The wind generally represents the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2) who is the one pushing ever-changing winds of false doctrine (Ephesians 4:14). It is an outside influence that you have no control over. Imagine yourself standing alone in an open field on a windy day. You are intent on standing firm where you are, not to be swayed by the wind. You have principles and faith that you must defend. Everyone has some sort of safety net or defense structure to help them stand firm in such situations, but that can only go so far.
Your defense mechanisms won’t always protect you. Just when you feel safe, the collective winds can shatter your ‘glass wall’ defenses. People can band together and rise up in efforts to blow over your moral foundation. One alone is as feeble as a molecule of air; many of them put together can be overwhelming. After that, the only thing left is your will, aided by the Holy Spirit, to stand on principle and faith alone.
As long as you have the personal fortitude to continue standing, you have won the battle. Once you are firmly grounded in your convictions, no amount of force will break you. Think of it as a candle in the dark: the light (good) can overpower vast expanses of darkness (evil). It seems to be battling the darkness. As long as it burns, the candle illuminates everything if even just a little.
The same is true for your soul standing in eternity. The phrase ‘when forever ends’ is just a literal device to say that if you stand up in principle for eternity, you win! You may sway now and then with all that’s against you, but you still remain standing. What is your foundation? Is it God’s words found in the Bible, or is it man’s thoughts and opinions? When the outside world changes, will you always ‘go with the flow’, or will you go the narrow way? When the ‘flow’ is righteous, will it be a wind at your back or a hindrance to your goals? Think about it.
