Spring: a chance to appreciate and cultivate the Lord’s provision
Bright, clear blue with a few breaks of white. The sky was mostly clear after a spring rain passed through.
Vibrant green. The crops just sprouted up on the farms you can see from the interstate.
A dull brown and gray. The trees stuck between winter and the beginnings of spring created a stark break between the intense hues of sky and field.
Spring always brings this juxtaposition. You can feel it when you walk outside on an early spring morning.
It’s a little chilly, but you know you’ll have to strip off that jacket in the afternoon. Nothing else has yet received its bright, spring color except those daffodils in the corner of the yard.
That’s what much of this past year felt like: being stuck between these beautiful, vivid potentials. For many it feels like others are growing and blooming while they remain in difficulty. There’s a tension between what could be and what we feel like is.
Often I look at hard periods of life this way, as if they’ll never end. I know I looked at the past pandemic year this way: finishing college from home and online, having my graduation ceremony postponed, most of my friends moving back to their respective homes, and struggling to find a job after graduation. Perhaps you do the same, thinking these boring, difficult or trying periods will never cease.
But, spring is coming. Or, maybe it came without you taking notice.
Isaiah 43:19 says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?...”
Stepping out of my car, I investigated those brown trees further. They weren’t completely dull and gray. On the tips of each branch were small sprouts of either green, red, pink or white. From a distance this first sign of new life wasn’t noticeable. It was only when I was close enough to deeply investigate that I saw there was growth on these otherwise dead-looking trees.
The blooms were springing forth, and I did not perceive them. It opened my eyes to how I and many others viewed this past year. I thought the last year was unnecessarily difficult and felt like a victim to much of what was stripped away, but it also helped me learn and grow in many ways.
As my favorite verses in Scripture say, “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places” (Habakkuk 3:17-19).
I first studied this passage after reading Hind’s Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard. It’s one of my favorite books, so I highly recommend it. The main character - whose name is Much Afraid (If that isn’t relatable, I’m not sure what is.) - goes on a journey of transformation, all the while not noticing how challenges are changing her for the better.
Perhaps that is the purpose in these otherwise dull or trying times in life: to bring forth new growth, to teach us something new, or to change us without us even noticing.
We aren’t naturally equipped for struggles much like we aren’t equipped with the body parts that best climb mountains, but God changes us. He makes our feet like the deer’s, so we can tread on mountaintops. The Lord is gracious and mysterious to work in ways that we sometimes overlook or don’t even understand.
So, as spring is now in full swing, take time to notice the seemingly unnoticeable growth, whether in the physical plants around you or the metaphorical blooms in your life, and thank God for it. Even if you don’t see it at first, growth is there. Growth and blooms are coming.
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