This past week, on a dim, rainy, dreary day and I looked out the window and noticed grass that appeared to have some green and was starting to show life. As the sun came out a couple days later, I did start seeing more green as Spring started to emerge in the outdoor world around us. In Iowa from about mid January to mid February, the world is frigid, bleak and barren with occasional blankets of snow covering everything. In about a month’s time, the terrain makes some remarkable changes as our world starts warming and coming to life. I’ve seen it every year for decades, but it never really gets old to me. I talked with a friend at church about how she started some plants in her greenhouse, and is excited for the new growing season. We will be taking down a willow tree near our house and have started trying to get some branches to root, so we can transplant it to a new place, once construction is done. New life is starting all around us. What do you look forward to most as Winter changes to Spring?
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever. Isaiah 40:8
Have you ever come to life after feeling dead or dormant for a time? Maybe you lost your passion for your work, or worship, or anything else in your life and fell into a dull, daily duty for what you did. What does it take for you to get your fire going again? Maybe it is a change in your routine, or you have to learn a new skill and be more alert. Sometimes it is just seeing what you are currently doing in a new way. For me, it is often appreciating the things I take for granted each day, and seeing everything as a gift instead of something I just have to get through to where I am going. Whatever it is, living each day with passion and purpose brings new life to you and those around you.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17
How is your relationship with God and with others? What three words would best describe how you relate to others? Would it include things like hatred, discord, jealousy, anger, impatience, selfishness, division, or more toward joy, kind, patient, peaceful, or just indifferent? If you are much like me, it may be a combination, but if we are not one extreme or the other, we tend to be stuck in the meh-middle, just going along in life without much expression at all. What would it take to bring you back to life and in the place you would like to be. Consistent communication through time in the Word and prayer, as well as finding a good balance and rhythm in your life with all that you have to do. Make time for the important things and not just the convenient things. I hope you can find that and get to a place where you can celebrate your life and all the new life around you, each day that we have!
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
Yours in Christ,
Clark
