Dr. Dan Hayden • 

Say, I finally got wise – I bought a blower. Now I just blow the leaves away.

In Isaiah 64:6, Isaiah uses an interesting analogy to describe our sin. He says, “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

Have you ever tried to rake leaves in the wind? If you’re raking with the wind, it’s an easy job. Just get the leaves up in the air and let the wind do the rest. But if you’re raking against the wind, it’s really frustrating! No sooner do you push the leaves in the desired direction, than the wind blows them right back from where you raked them. The wind is a formidable factor when it comes to leaves. So if you’re smart, you always rake with the wind. Now God says our iniquities are like that. “…our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” It’s the picture of our life at the end. We’re like a withered leaf that is blown away in the wind.

“Take us away” is the Hebrew verb, nasah, which means “to raise; to lift up; to bear or carry or take away.”

You could think of NASA, and its space program, as you watch the space shuttle rise into the air and get carried away into space. Now that’s what our iniquities do to us. They lift us up and carry us away into space (only in our case, we don’t come back again).

As Bobby Dylan once sang, “we’re just blowin’ in the wind”— unless, of course, you know Jesus Christ as your Savior. Then you’re anchored in the One who is the rock, and the wind can’t blow you away. What a difference that is from “…and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

Say – is your life anchored in Christ? How much better that is, than being blown away in the wind!