We are Wind Chimes

I thought I scheduled this to post yesterday, but evidently I have a gremlin "helping" me! Sorry about that!

I love wind chimes. Not enough to collect them, but I do think they’re beautiful, and I am fascinated by the amount of science that necessarily goes into making them. There’s a lot more than meets the eye that goes into the choice of pipe width and length, material, where to put the holes and strikers so that the intervals are right, and I’m sure you could get all the way down to talking about the physics of what kind of string will allow the chime to vibrate the most freely.

Wind chimes come in many sizes and produce all different sounds. Some chime, ring, knock, and rattle. Some produce sounds differently in cold verses heat. Some sound most beautiful in the rain; some will be virtually destroyed if they get wet.


In many ways, we are are like wind chimes. We come in many shapes and sizes, we have many gifts and short falls. We have all been very well thought out - to the smallest detail - designed with a specific place and environment in mind, so that we will be a thing of beauty.

We are just like wind chimes in that we are all different. And just like wind chimes - though all different - are all oriented toward the wind for their purpose, so, too, are we all oriented toward God for ours.

Just like wind chimes, there are things that can impair our ability to function as we were designed. Wind Chimes get tangled in branches, strings get broken, and things can happen that keep the wind chime from moving in the breeze. Likewise, we get tangled in our temporal affairs, we sin and turn our back on God, we refuse to seek and act on his will for our lives.

Though we were made for God, oriented toward him, things get in the way of our seeking him.

What are we to do when we realize that this has happened to us? Two things come to mind.

A few minutes in prayer is a good immediate step. Holding God at a distance is what gets us into trouble the most often, and prayer is one thing that can draw us back.

The wind can make a sound from even a tangled or broken wind chime, but it won’t be at its most full unless it is untangled and repaired. A mighty wind can do this, or an intervention from the one who made and hung the wind chime.

This may be likened to a trip to the confessional, to more fully restore our hearts to their true orientations and ability to most completely live out our purpose as wind chimes.