New Life

Are any you are going through extreme turmoil right now? Are you beyond your breaking point? Do you feel like all hell is breaking loose all around you? Are you exhausted beyond belief and feel like you just cannot withstand one more day?

Maybe you’re not but I am. I have noticed, though, over the past several years that the seasons of my life—the seasons of God in my life, coincide with the seasons in the natural world: summer, fall, winter, spring.

"Blessed be the name of God, forever and ever. He knows all, does all: He changes the seasons and guides history, He raises up kings and also brings them down, he provides both intelligence and discernment, He opens up the depths, tells secrets, sees in the dark—light spills out of him! God of all my ancestors, all thanks! all praise! You made me wise and strong.” - Daniel 2:19

It is April 28th. We have entered spring: the season where all of the earth around us is pushing and fighting hard for new life. It fights through the storms and the temperature that threatens to snow upon it again. It pushes through the hard, cold soil that is beginning to thaw. It pushes through the cold, nearly dead branches on the trees. New life is pushing its way through.

For me, the months of March, April, and most of May have been, for the past 4 years, agonizing months. In the depths of winter, January or February, I will begin to get a glimpse of something good, something very good to come, and something in me understands that it will come by June or July. By March, I’m starting to groan in my spirit, because the pain of my circumstance becomes more intense. By April, I’m pushing and fighting even harder to hang onto the hope, the glimpse I have of that good something that is coming. I hang on with everything I’ve got through thunderstorms and late spring snow storms, I hang on because despite what temper tantrums the weather is throwing, my calendar says that it is SPRING. And the natural progression after spring is SUMMER. Come summer, life is in full-bloom. The pressure is off. The buds have pushed through earth and branches and are alive and well. It happens every year. It’s a wonder that I still have to fight doubt, disbelief and despair every year that summer will come. That life will live. That I will come through whatever ordeal it is that I’m fighting.

Whatever it is that you are waiting for, whatever it is that you are hoping for: Don’t give up. Keep pushing through. Eventually, you, like the buds on the trees, will burst through and blossom. Once the buds turn to leaves and the summer is rich and full, there’s no more laboring for life. They simply live and exist and enjoy the sun. At least for a season. Then we die and grow to new life all over again the next year. Each year, though, if believe in our God and if we trust ourselves to trust our God, we will be all the more wise, strong, and able to push ourselves through to new life.