Tired of winter

Snow is predicted as I write, but I don’t expect to see much. All around, spring is whispering its approach. Near my home, some daffodils have already pushed stems out of the thawing ground. This time of year, I’m drawn back to the poetry in Song of Songs (Solomon): "See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come" (2:11-12). Yes, I know this is supposed to be a love song between a king and his beloved. But it’s also a celebration of God’s lavish love for me. He, too, says, “Arise, come, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me” (v. 13).

God programmed into flowers the cycle of living and dying, seen so clearly in those that rise from bulbs. When I clip off the daffodils’ spent stems in late spring, I think of their pungent, brilliant yellow blooms. I’m also confident they’ll return the next spring.

If only such confidence fortressed my prayers for those in a persistent spiritual “winter.” Every day as I open my prayer notebook, my fingers pass over the names of many in this nation and overseas, who are missing out on God’s best for their lives. Some have no relationship with the God who created them. Others acknowledge God, but are stuck in life, like a February that stays gray, flowers that never push through soil, dirty snow piles that never melt. For them, I sometimes let the words of Ephesians 2:10 become my prayer: “Father, I know You care for them more than they’ll ever know. Remind them that they are Your workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which You prepared in advance for them to do. Help them rise out of ‘stuckness’ to the challenges and joys of serving You.”

Winter is part of nature, and of life. Because we live in a fallen world, we’ll all experience the chill of hardship and sorrow. But we also live in the light of Easter, the history-shattering reality of a Christ who didn’t stay dead and buried, but came back to life. God has “rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13-14).

Go back and re-read that verse. It thrills me. It’s part of Paul’s phenomenal prayer for the Colossian church, and includes petitions that their lives would bear fruit in loving service for God. Or, to borrow an old saying, that they’ll bloom for Him where they are planted.

I’m ready for spring. Let the thawing continue!