Have you felt like your life has been a whirlwind lately? This is for you!!! I came across the passage in Hosea 8 about reaping the whirlwind. I had always read this passage as a wrathful one, but this time God began to download something I had never heard before. Now I read it as a tender, pleading call back into His arms. Whirlwinds come in your spiritual life. Times when obligations and events and heartaches and busy days are swirling around. Merriam Webster defines whirlwind as "a SMALL rotating storm of LIMITED extent" or "a confused rush". Guess what? The whirlwind you're in is of limited extent. It has no great power over you! It is limited! God is UNlimited! The anecdote to the whirlwind is in its second definition. If a whirlwind is a confused rush, the anecdote is a CLARITY and SLOWING DOWN. God began showing me that while whirlwinds come, it is how we USE this force that determines our experience. Hosea 8:7 warns that he who "sows to the wind will reap the whirlwind". God began to open my understanding of this verse. The word used for wind in Strong's exhaustive Concordance is Ruwach that means "mind, spirit, or wind". If we sow to the MIND (feeding worries, basing our decisions on our understanding instead of God), we reap the Whirlwind that is the confused rush. If we sow to the SPIRIT of God, we reap the whirlwind of Elijah that takes us up to Heaven!! (2 Kings 2). So how do we sow to the spirit? The rest of Hosea 8 leaves clues. "Israel cries out, 'Our God, we acknowledge you!' but Israel has rejected what is good" (v 2) "Though they offer sacrifices and gifts to me, and though they eat meat, the Lord is not pleased" (v 13) God is simply craving your INTIMACY with Him. Do you hear Him crying out to come to the secret place? Not for your performance. Not for your sacrifices. Just your listening ear and your heart that is moved for Him and by Him. Pressing into intimacy in the midst of overwhelming chaos in life is the key to the Elijah experience of the whirlwind. It will only draw you closer to the Lord!
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