He hovered in front of my rocking chair on the porch, slowly flying up and quickly dropping down. At first, I thought he was trying to make his way under the eave of the house, but he darted under there only for a second and then went back into the open. Suddenly a huge gust of wind blew his direction and the little dirt dauber was swept backwards about 10 feet. The wind was strong and the gusts never quite stopped. For ten minutes I watched this little guy gain a foot, then lose two; gain altitude and drop back down.

Finally, after he had been battered by the wind for way too long, he ducked under the eave of the porch and rested a few minutes. I watched him, convinced he was too tired to keep doing it, but the little bit of rest and shelter gave him the burst of energy he needed to try again. Eventually he emerged and got his timing right with the wind, zooming off in the direction he had been aiming all along.

As I think about that little bug, I can’t help but compare him to our own lives. We have plans, goals, and directions and we work hard at trying to make them happen. But then the wind comes and shakes everything up. Sometimes the fight seems too hard as we march headlong into the wind. With every step forward it seems like we are taking two steps back. We are up one minute and down the next. Often, we trudge forward, but more often than not, we get weary and give up.

I love what that little dirt dauber did when he got tired-he found shelter and he regrouped. He needed renewed strength in order to push through the hard gusts. Without a break to get his wits about him, he would have been stuck in the same vicious pattern for way too long; or he would have simply given up. But, instead, he took that break. He rested. He regrouped. And with his renewed sense of purpose and focus, he flew back into the middle of the hardest wind and pushed through to his ultimate goal.

We can learn a lot from this little bug. When we are blown by the wind and we have pushed until we have no push left, we just need to stop, pull away from the hard stuff for a little while, and regroup. Call a friend. Spend some time in prayer or bible reading. Go for a ride. Get alone and cry. Sneak away for the weekend and rest. Take a nap. Do something to get that head on straight and when it’s time, we need to fly right back into the gusting wind with a renewed sense of purpose, seeing it clearly, and push through with all our might.

Don’t give up this week when your blown by the wind. Find shelter, regroup, and fly right back in. You can do this little bug, you can do it.

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