Wind and Lightning

Wind and spirit are the same word many places in scripture used so interchangeably that sometimes it is not known which one is meant.  That God would associate Himself so closely with something so unseen and unpredictable is terribly hard for me to bear at times.

I have this image in my mind of a sailboat of old stranded in the middle of a windless ocean for days with its sailors with nothing to do but wait.  Or row.

When God's spirit is not blowing in my life, I feel forsaken.  I try to position myself better to catch whatever remains of the wind, but when even that goes still I give up.  I eventually get so tired of the lack of activity that I start rowing.  The biggest problem comes when I then distrust the wind due to its lack of predictability and choose to just row all the time instead of trying to catch the wind again when it comes back.  I don't think God ever intended for us to be rowers in this context.

Lightning striking the earth is depicted as God sending down His answers to prayers in scripture.  Pretty crazy when you start looking at just how often lightning strikes the earth on any given day.  Is there really anything else more unpredictable than lightning?  We know the situations that usually surround it (clouds blown in by the wind), but never its exact path.  Just look at it.  It's all jagged and erratic.

I struggle to accept the unpredictable nature of God.  I am finding that it is nearly impossible to have a fulfilling relationship with someone so unpredictable.  There seems to be only one way to make this happen--complete unwavering trust.  I use the word trust instead of faith on purpose because it makes so much more sense to me and faith is one of those words that is just caked up with the gunk of dead religious experiences.  

Trust is the path God has had me on for eleven years.  It is the most basic of all tenets of following Him and I still struggle to make much progress with it.  This much trust I am developing though, when I am weak, He is strong.  When I go the wrong way, He isn't pissed.  He is refusing to let me build a foundation on lies.  He is placing me on the high place of truth at all costs and pains and He is doing it as gently as possible.  He wants what is best for me way more than I want it for myself.  Just like I love my son, He loves me.  I must hold on to this one truth if I am to make it.

So, when I am struggling, does it show more trust to tell Him that I don't trust Him knowing that He'll understand or to try to launch out into something that I think is Him but to do so fearfully?  I guess this question boils down to another question.  Of motive and action, which is more important?