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The
Blowing Wind
By Zig
Ziglar
 ery
few people ask for trouble. We certainly don't ask God to give us
problems. But maybe we should.
I received an interesting note from
Thomas Wylie of Westminster, Maryland, who visited the Biosphere
Two, a man-made living habitat in Arizona. During the tour the guide
explained that one oversight of the designers was their failure
to create wind within the structure. No wind to blow the trees back
and forth created a problem: The trees would grow to a certain height
and then topple over from their own weight. Lack of wind resulted
in the trees not having a deeply extended root system.
Mr. Wylie explained that this thought
made him realize that without the winds of adversity we cannot grow
and become the people God designed us to be without toppling over.
I agree. You cannot raise champions on a feather bed. The percentage
of people who overcome adversity to go to great heights is legendary.
From time to time when the weather
doesn't suit us, all of us are inclined to say things like we wish
we could make it rain or stop raining, the wind to blow more or
less, that it would get cooler or warmer, etc. The biosphere clearly
demonstrates to us that man is far more likely to “forget” some
things or doesn't have the wisdom to know things, as they forgot
to let the wind blow to give the trees those roots. It really causes
us to be grateful that God is in control of the total picture, and
while we might not understand His head, we can certainly trust His
heart.
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To “Fit In Up There”
I have
a friend who during the Great Depression lost his job, a fortune,
a wife, and a home. But he tenaciously held to his faith—the
only thing he had left.
One day he stopped to watch some men
doing stonework on a huge church. One of them was chiseling a triangular
piece of stone. “What are you going to do with that?” asked my friend.
The workman said, “See that little
opening away up there near the spire? Well, I'm shaping this down
here, so it will fit in up there.”
Tears filled the eyes of my friend
as he walked away, for it seemed that God had spoken through the
workman to explain the ordeal through which he was passing: “I'm
shaping you down here, so you'll fit in up there.”
—Billy Graham
(from More Stories for the Heart, compiled by Alice Gray)
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