Have you ever been blind-sided by an amazing concept found in something so simple?  Have you ever walked by something (or someone) for weeks, months, or years, only to one day have an “Ah Ha!” moment and be impacted? 

I went out for a brief walk at work today and I looked at one of the trees and saw that it was beginning to bud because, as the title of this post says, “Spring is here!”.  I have never really taken the time to look at buds on a tree.  I’m not a gardener, I’m not a botanist, I’m not a florist, and I would find a way to kill a chia-pet.  But for some reason, today, God used a small little bud on a tree to speak something to me.

The first thing I noticed about the bud on the tree is that it seemed so innocent.  The bud was largely undamaged.  The flower or leaf inside the bud hadn’t had the chance or the opportunity to be damaged by wind or rain.  It was partially protected yet partially beginning to unfold and become who it was meant to be. 

The second thing that I noticed was hope.  It wasn’t yet everything that it was destined to be, but to see a whole tree filled with buds spoke hope to me.  Inside the bud were all the atributes of a beautiful flower or a vibrant green leaf, but you could only see part of what it was meant to become.  We don’t yet see a tree full of leaves or flowers, but it’s the hope of something that will bring happiness to people, oxgen to the atmosphere, etc.

The third thing that I noticed was in some ways an application of the previous thoughts of hope and innocece: life.  I immediately thought of parallels to my own life and our collective lives in Christ. 

2 Corinthians 5:17 –

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away ; behold , all things are become new.

We are just like that bud.  When we come to Christ, we are like that bud that I saw on the tree.  We start out innocent.  Much of who we are going to be and what we are going to accomplish is hidden to everyone..everyone but God.  We have hope…hope that by being who God intended us to be that we can bring happiness and show Christ’s love to others.  We feel full of life – new life.  While we previously were calloused and hardened (much like the trunk of the tree), God made something beautiful out of our life. 

As we grow and our destiny unfolds, there will be opportunities to be shaken by life..winds of adversity..trials..tribulations…rain…storms…but God knew what He was doing when He grafted you into the tree that He placed you into.  He is our source of life, our source of hope, the One who holds our innocence and destiny in His hands.

Never forget the fact that the Bible doesn’t say that He will make new things, rather it says that He will make all things new.  God has taken things that were previously existing (us) and made us new. 

Let’s enjoy His presence and love and rest in the process that He has us in.  Spring is here…this is a new season.  I’m determined to bloom into what God wants me to be.