Who Else Needs the Newness of Spring?

The first green leaves poked through the soil today in the garden. The hope of coming salsa felt exciting as the new onion leaves reached up. It’s nearly time to get the other ingredients into the soil and let them start stretching out and settling their roots into the nourishment.

As spring blows in warmth and the sunshine beacons new life, turning the world green in slow motion, my mind always turns back to the springtime of our soul. The season of new life after the loss, the trial, the pain. The season of hope. The season of green after the dark, stillness of winter.

There is always hope. There is always a green season coming. Even if not the way we anticipate it.

The disciples watched Jesus take his last breath on a Roman cross. Surely the darkness of the following days brought a soul chilling heaviness with it.

But God. He makes all things new.

That Sunday morning with an empty garden tomb must’ve felt like the first green day of spring for those followers and dear friends of Jesus. The One who makes all things new, had made Himself alive again!

Jesus took on the darkness of the winter sin we carried; and burst into the green, new life of spring and fresh hope for those who would surrender to Him.

So how can we experience the new, green life of spring, regardless of our geography?

1. Those who come to Jesus are a new creation.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17

A fresh start. A new creation in Him. He who once was dead is now alive in Christ. You are dead to your sins, though you wrestle the temptations, there is redemption and a new direction of growth for those who surrender to Jesus.

2. Those in Christ get a new heart.

I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and will give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26

A new heart from which to think and feel differently. Before surrendering to Jesus and living with the stone-cold atheist heart that I had, I viewed life and myself from a dark, hopeless perspective. The new heart He put within me at salvation has left no area of my life untouched by the unfurling green of it’s hope filled growth.

3. Those who follow Jesus get new mercies.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

God is so thorough! Those of us following Him, not only get to BE new creations and get new insides to live out of but every single morning is a new, green springtime of mercies.

We don’t live from those old mercies of yesterday. Today starts a new day, new mercies, new opportunities for hope.

The new mercies in the morning is what ushers my heart to draw near to Him first thing. After 23 years of living hopeless, dark winters, I am ready for the the rest of my days to be filled with the green hope of a fresh mercies.

As I settle into my favorite chair in my little writing room, where He meets with me, I close my eyes and am reminded of His nearness and the newness of hope that envelopes me like a favorite blanket.

Pause.

Close your eyes.

Draw near to the Gardener who promises to bring forth green hope in you and me when we turn to Him.

Take in the springtime newness of life that comes with a daily walk with Jesus. He alone turns winter into spring, even in the coldest of places.

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