A few weeks ago I was walking down the street when a gust of freezing cold wind struck me with enough force that it took some actual effort to keep walking forward. I was never actually in any danger of being blown over or being unable to take a step forward, but it was definitely an interesting experience for me since I'm used to being able to walk forward without any opposition. The wind ebbed and flowed throughout that walk, and I got a little frustrated each time that it flared up, but the impression came to me that the wind could blow all day long but it wouldn't be able to knock me over. In fact, if I put a windmill where the wind was blowing fiercest, then I could transform that wind into power. This inspired me to view the weaknesses and character flaws and the challenges with which the Lord has blessed us in a different light. Adversity and the attacks of Satan are often compared to fierce winds. God has given us windmills, such as short tempers, lustful eyes, lying tongues, debilitating diseases, grieving losses, major depressions, doubtful hearts, addictive behaviors, financial setbacks and other challenges and temptations that do so easily beset us. These windmills convert temptations and rage and lust and dishonesty and doubts and fears and pains and despair into the enabling power of the pure love of Christ. This happens either because we are faced with a temptation that seems beyond us but we have the presence of mind to pray and plead for divine intervention to help us overcome the temptation, or, because we succumb to the temptation and stray from the path but nevertheless come to repent of our poor choice and turn back to the Savior and pray and plead for forgiveness. In either scenario, whether we succeed and keep the commandments, or fail and repent, the result is the same. We pray for and immediately or eventually receive an outpouring of God's love and strength. I know that it is frustrating to have to keep fighting the same battles over and over. To face a day filled with hundreds of reasons why we should relapse or walk out or just end it all and to make the right choice only to have to go through the same gauntlet again the next day and the next is heartbreaking. We may question the wisdom or the necessity of these windmills. We may even convince ourselves that the windmills are somehow the cause of the fierce winds we face. In Miguel Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote, the character Don Quixote, obsessed with the fantasy of living out the life of a chivalric knight errant of ages past, becomes convinced that some windmills are actually fierce and evil giants, so he begins to attack them. He charges them on his horse with a lance and jousts or tilts at them. Thus, we have the idiom, “tilting at windmills,” to describe someone attacking imaginary enemies or pursuing a futile and unrealistic goal. The windmills in our lives are not evil monsters that we have to destroy. The wind will blow just as often and as fiercely whether there is a windmill or not. The only difference is that if there were no windmill there, then the wind could not be converted into power. “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” (Ether 12:27). We may be disappointed if we view the promise of “weak things becoming strong” as a promise to replace our weakness with our strength. This would be a step down in any case because whatever strength we could have on our own in place of our weakness is infinitesimally insignificant compared to the strength of the Lord. If God tore down our windmill or built up in front of it a giant windbreak so the wind would never touch us, then we would have no need to humble ourselves and have faith in Christ that His grace is sufficient for us. It would be nice if we could just never sin or fall or fail or face challenges that are completely beyond us in the first place. Then we would never have to repent. We may feel trapped in this endless cycle of sinning, repenting, receiving forgiveness, becoming complacent, only to start the whole thing over by sinning again. But going in circles is not necessarily pointless. After all, the blades of a windmill are designed to spin around and around but never really go anywhere. And yet, even though they are stuck in this endless loop, they nevertheless turn wind into power. Facing the same fierce winds of opposition and temptation day after day or minute after minute does not mean we are stuck or that our lives are pointless. We have a priceless opportunity to use our weaknesses to become humble and convert our trials and temptations into the enabling power of our Savior's love and grace. The fact that we will fail again an hour or a day or a week from now does not destroy the fact that in this moment now we are filled with the strength of the Lord and are successfully fending off the latest attack. If we fall at Jesus’s feet and hold out our broken heart to Him and plead for forgiveness and the strength to go on, if this is our first or our millionth offense, Christ's response will be the same. “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” (John 8:11). The Savior knows that we have this weakness and that we will inevitably sin again, but He will keep forgiving us when we repent and keep entreating us to go and sin no more because He has hope that as long as we have that windmill or that weakness there and find it in ourselves to continue to be or become humble so that we may convert our fierce winds into His grace, then there will come a day when we finally listen to His plea to go and sin no more with all of our heart, might, mind and strength and no matter how fierce the wind we actually succeed in sinning no more. I am so grateful for the wind and the windmills in my life and that so much more of our Savior's love and grace has poured into and through my life than ever would have been possible if I had not been blessed with such weaknesses and flaws and the temptations and adversities which so easily beset me.
