Acts 2:2–4 — “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting… All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.”
There’s something about wind you can’t control. You can’t grab it, contain it, or make it move the way you want. You can only notice it — and let it move you.
That’s how Ruach works.
In Ezekiel’s valley, Ruach was breath that brought dry bones back to life. In Acts, that same breath becomes wind — a holy gust that fills a room and turns hesitant followers into courageous witnesses.
It’s wild how God’s Spirit moves like that — from quiet inhaling to fierce sending. From stillness to movement. From “Come, fill me” to “Go, use me.”
And if I’m being honest, that shift is uncomfortable. Because it means letting go of control.
For the past few months, I have been wrestling with that. Why aren’t we stronger financially? Why don’t we have more new families coming in the doors? Why can’t I/our leadership teams figure out how to make the wind blow harder in our direction?
And beneath those questions was a harder one:
What if I’m the problem?
That one stings. But is one I’ve been wrestling with for awhile.
But as I sat with it — really sat with it — I began to sense something deeper. Maybe God wasn’t asking me to fix the wind. Maybe God was asking me to notice it. To pay attention.
To stop trying to measure the movement of Spirit by the size of a crowd, and instead see it in the faces of the ones who show up hungry for hope. Hear it in the one-on-one conversations with folks as they ask for time together. Experience it at Vision Team meetings, or in the comments/conversations of our PAC Team.
While I’ll never throw out metrics, I needed to start looking at moments — the quiet transformations, the unseen acts of love, the people breathing again because Ruach met them in their valley.
That’s when I realized: maybe this is about way more than getting “bigger.”
Maybe it’s about going deeper.
Because Ruach doesn’t just fill lungs; it fills lives. It doesn’t just revive us; it releases us. It moves us outward — into the world, into the places that need healing, justice, and peace.
When the Spirit came at Pentecost, it didn’t stay in that upper room. It spilled out into the streets. It translated hope into every language, broke through barriers, and said, “This love isn’t just for you — it’s for everyone.”
And maybe that’s what God is still whispering to us:
Stop trying to make the wind behave.
Stop worrying if the valley looks impressive enough.
Just breathe.
Then move.
Because the same Ruach that found bones in Ezekiel’s valley is the same wind that filled that upper room — and it’s the same wind that’s still blowing through West, even when we can’t see it on paper.
Maybe the real miracle isn’t the size of the movement — it’s that the movement keeps happening at all.
Ruach still finds its way home.
And sometimes, home is right where we’ve been standing all along — in the place where breath becomes wind, and God’s Spirit keeps teaching us to let go and let love move through us again.