A Mighty Rushing Wind

“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” — Acts 2:2 (KJV)

Crossweeksung was a small, scattered settlement of Delaware people in New Jersey. When Brainerd first came, only a few women and children gathered to listen. He preached simply about Jesus, and they asked him to come back. Each time, more people came, some walking many miles. By early August there was a crowd.

On 8 August 1745, he preached to about sixty-five people. Afterwards he started speaking to individuals who looked troubled. And then, he wrote:

“The power of God seemed to descend upon the assembly ‘like a mighty rushing wind,’ and with an astonishing energy bore down all before it.”

He was amazed. “Almost all persons of all ages were bowed down with concern together, and scarcely one was able to withstand the shock of this surprising operation.” Old men and women who had been drunk for years, and children of six or seven, were all crying out to God for mercy. People were praying all over the house and outside it. Brainerd summed it up: “I never saw any day like it, in all respects.”

What had he been preaching? Not frightening sermons full of threats. The day before, he wrote, people’s hearts had been “pierced with the tender and melting invitations of the Gospel, when there was not a word of terror spoken to them.” It was the kindness of God, the invitation to come to Jesus, that broke their hearts open.

And it wasn’t just emotion. When Brainerd asked two people who had found peace what more they wanted God to do for them, they replied that “they wanted Christ should wipe their hearts quite clean.” Over the following months, real lives changed. People gave up drinking, settled quarrels and paid what they owed, and many were baptised and became a church.

Brainerd was very clear that he hadn’t made this happen. He was a sick, discouraged young man in a place he hadn’t even planned to be. It had come, he said, “at a time, in a place, and upon subjects, that scarce ever entered his heart” (those are Edwards’s words about it). It was God’s gift, in answer to years of prayer.

That is worth holding on to. You can’t manufacture what God does. But you can do what Brainerd did: keep praying, keep telling people about Jesus kindly, and keep going when nothing seems to happen. God decides the timing.

One thing to do this week: think of one person you would love to know Jesus. This week, pray for them by name every day, and look for one chance to show them the kindness of Jesus, with no pressure and no lecture.