Looks mostly dead to me

I glanced out the kitchen window this morning at the forest of trees that surround us.  Right now, the scene is largely devoid of color, greys, musty browns and barren.  A few gangly rhododendrons persevere through the winter and remind me what green looks like.

The landscape looks mostly dead to me. 

But I know what is coming.  It is not just what I can hope for.  It is of what I can be assured.  It is what I can know.

In a few short weeks, these woods will shake their drowsy heads and burst forth with a thousand shades of tender green, their praises bombarding the senses, their joy resounding all over the forest.  The animals emerge from their caves and holes in the ground.  The birds form a neighborhood chorus.  Tendrils of wildflowers find their way through the hard rocky ground to carpet the earth with beauty.

The flowers, leaves and fruit decorate the branches.  But the growth comes from the roots.

The landscape is not dead after all, but being redeemed.

No matter what we believe,

the awe we feel

    is worship to the Creator

just coming into view.

Despite what appears on the surface, there is a lot more going on behind the scenes.  Silence does not denote that God is absent.  Silence is His unfathomable Presence beckoning us to go deeper, to listen not just for an answer or for change to happen, but to seek Him, be still ourselves, and know that He is God.

“All human wisdom is contained in these two words:  Wait and Hope,” says Alexandre Dumas in his classic The Count of Monte Cristo.

Don’t get ahead of God.  Wait and hope.

Spring is not just coming.  God is bringing it.  God is redeeming the landscape.  God is redeeming your life.

…as Christ was raised from the dead

by the glory of the Father,

we too might walk

             in newness of life.

              Romans 6. 4