Chasing the Wind

Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind. --Ecclesiastes 4:6, NIV

I'm breaking format today in order that I might share with you a poem written in memory of David Matthieu, our friend who recently went home to be with the Lord. We had only known him a short while, but God saw fit to teach us much through that friendship.

Chasing the Wind

He said "I feel like I'm chasing the wind.
I want so much to be free.
How can I have peace? How can I be sure
God's grace is meant for me?"

We shared with him our own struggles
and told him how our faith gets me through.
And by his warm smile I could tell I'd connected,
David's heart was being tuned.

We had only meant to encourage,
to be friends on whom he could lean.
We couldn't have know that the seeds we'd sown
God would soon be harvesting.

If he had chased the wind forever
could he have somehow been able to find
the holy secrets and mysteries
and the reason why God gives us life?

All that season his faith grew strong;
He set aside fear and worry.
He learned that God had a plan to bring relief
and that life should not be hurried.

The day that it happened we'll never quite know;
perhaps it's better that way.
We feel a sense of loss without David,
and we hear whispering breezes say:

He couldn't chase the wind forever,
once he was able to find
the holy secrets and mysteries
and the path to eternal life.
He's no longer chasing the wind,
breezes are only on earth.
He's at peace, David's been set free,
He's no longer chasing the wind.

We cannot chase the wind forever
there's so much for us to find,
hidden in the mystery of God's great love,
and the promise of eternal life.