Comfort foods for the soul (17): Rest in the breeze

Does anyone here place a high premium on rational thinking?

Like if things can’t pass through your mind it ain’t true?

I don’t know if it’s my genes or my education in engineering, I feel somehow I rely on my rational mind to filter through everything.

I get it that I shouldn’t be “irrational”.

But it seems that somehow I find it difficult to accept things out of the ordinary, like miracles.

I either write them off as baloney, coincidence, or just pure luck.

I know I’m poorer functioning that way but I just couldn’t help it.

It just feel that something is missing and the rest and peace just aren’t full, as long as my rational mind remains the arbiter of what’s true.

I did meet others who were more of a charismatic or Pentecostal tradition, who seemed to be much easier to be happy and at peace.

One Sunday I heard a preacher recount a story.

It was about Maurice Graham.

In 1990 he, his wife and two sons were in Kuwait for missionary work.

But suddenly on Aug 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and kept the Graham family with two hundred plus others as hostages in the American Embassy.

In September his wife and two sons were allowed to leave Kuwait.

But not Graham.

On Dec 6, out of the blue Saddam announced to let all hostages leave.

He was released together with the remaining foreign hostages, numbering over 2,000 across Iraq and Kuwait.

No one knew why.

Anecdotes suggested even then President George H W Bush had indicated he didn’t understand either.

In his later memoir and interviews, Graham recounts that embassy personnel told him Saddam Hussein had experienced a troubling dream shortly before the release order.

When the preacher finished his story, he showed an old photo of groups of people praying.

He then said it was the members of a church back then praying for Graham’s release.

And they were members of the Saddleback Church of California.

The exact same church where the preacher was now preaching.

Then came the clincher:

The preacher revealed that he was one of the hostages who was realised earlier, the elder son of Maurice Graham!

The Spirit does things beyond rational calculation and interpretation.

It’s not irrational.

It just opens up one’s mind to a completely wide open power and reality.

A reality where God sees, hears, and acts.

The word “spirit” in Greek also means “breeze”.

To those freed from the shackles of rationality, there’s rest in the breeze.

Soothing and comforting.