Wind is an enabler. With her aid trees wave their limbs, waves lap the shore, birds glide with their wings rested upon her current. Wind is flighty, mesmerizing, volatile. Blasting in strength, then hiding away leaving stillness.

This verse in Hosea speaks of Israel sowing wind. What a oxymoronic image, to till, plant, and water something void of substance. What they reap is wind’s destructive counterpart, a thrashing, swirling whirlwind. But I too am like Israel. Passionately, effortfully, sowing things that are mesmerizing at first glance, but reaping destruction in accumulative measure.

It is a little ironic that the Hebrew word ruach used in Hosea 8 is the same word used elsewhere in the Old Testament for God’s Spirit. Paul makes a connection for us, though, when he writes of sowing to the flesh, which reaps corruption, versus sowing to the Spirit, which reaps eternal life (Galations 6). God’s Spirit is not like the destructive or illusive ruach that Hosea speaks of. When we sow ruach, we reap a whirlwind, but when we sow our lives in the Ruach of God, we reap fruit in eternally greater measure.

Listen back to the sermon here.