The Grand Invasion

Ta-da!  Spring is invading from the ground up with a million shades of fresh green, not all at once lest we don't appreciate the resurrection of the land, or lest we forget how despairing the winter we just experienced.

Spring is the visible manifestation of God's promise to us, "Behold, I make all things new." (Revelation 21. 5)  We are awed by this glimpse of what hope looks like.   Winter does not last forever.  We recognize deep inside that this restoration is what God has been bringing into our lives all along, even through the frigid darkness of winter.

Yet God need not transform the entire landscape at once for us to have hope.   He does it one tiny glimpse at a time, a wildflower in the gravel at the side of the road, a glimmer that catches our eyes, a touch of green, a burst of color, or the celebration of a single tree in the forest. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But we don't even need those visible reminders.  We have His word on that.  He hears my voice.  He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage... Psalm 55. 18  Everyone struggles with something.  God brings His light to the shadows.  He brings spring to our winters.

God unveils full color where we only saw dismal shades of black and white.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An arborist once told me that it is the slow soak of the winter snow and rain that nourishes the trees and strengthens them.  Winter is actually the life-giving season.  Winter is designed for the deepening of roots.  Even our own souls becoming stronger in trusting Him.

Darkness is pushed back to reveal the hope that has sustained us all through the bitter winter, even in a barren and abandoned landscape, which turns out not so bleak at all.

 The silence of the snow is not His absence, but a deeper dimension of His Presence, His whisper to us, "Come deeper with Me,"  the passage from one season to the next.  It is not the end of the world after all.  Something new bursts forth, that which only God can do.

And He starts with the tiniest wildflowers, the evidence of His majesty.

Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth,
      do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
      and rivers in the desert.
The wild beasts will honor me,
the wolves and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
     rivers in the desert,
to give drink to My chosen people,
the people whom I formed for Myself
that they might declare My praise.

                         Isaiah 43. 18-21