Episode 228: When Faith Blows In
The Rev. Dr. Alix Pridgen
“The Spirit is like the wind. It blows where it will. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.” Faith, Jesus is saying, doesn’t always begin with certainty. Sometimes it begins the way wind begins — quietly, mysteriously, moving through places we didn’t expect.
I once knew someone who wandered into church almost by accident. She didn’t know the stories. She didn’t know the language of faith. She mostly stayed in the nursery and kept to herself. But slowly something began to happen. People listened to her. They welcomed her questions. They loved her without demanding that she prove anything first. And one day she said something remarkable. She said, “Somehow I’ve come to believe that God exists… and that God loves me.” Not because someone forced her. Not because she solved every theological question. But because she encountered grace. And that’s what Jesus is trying to tell Nicodemus.
God doesn’t wait for us to understand everything before loving us. God simply loves the world — the whole messy, complicated, questioning world. And when love like that finds us, something new begins.
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