“Wind”. Acrylic paint on canvas. 20″x 16″.

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

John 3:8

This image was painted over a period of six or seven months. Originally, it showed a tornado with a predominate brown, yellow and orange color. For a while, I thought the picture was finished, but never was satisfied with it as it was. It nagged at me. Several times, I tried and failed to fix the picture. Eventually, I stopped trying and simply painted without making conscious choices. In that session, the tornado vanished but the windstorm remained. Remarkably, the spirit of the original carried through the struggle. It easily could have descended into muddy chaos instead. Both the image and the creative process that I went through to make the picture remind me of the quote in John chapter 3. The wind is real and true, even though we cannot see it. It has life-changing power, totally beyond our control. It operates with an intention all of its own. These things also are true of the Holy Spirit.