“Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.”
– Virgil A. Kraft
Can I make a confession? I’m finding it a little hard to get excited about spring time. As I write this, yesterday was technically the first day of spring. It certainly doesn’t feel like it. Those of you living in Florida or Southern California no doubt see things differently, but in Minnesota, everything is still covered with snow and slush. Soon that will melt and everything will be muddy brown. It will be that way for quite a while. Lifeless. Greenless. Dirty. “When will real spring get here?” I ask.
Of course, I know that in time, what I think of as spring – the color and the life! – will come. It always does. Eventually the trees will turn green, the plants will bud, and the flowers will bloom. That’s what creation does because that’s what our Creator God does. Indeed, spring seems to be God’s season. As the preacher Virgil A. Kraft once put it: “Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.” I just need to be patient and hopeful and prayerful as I await what I know God has promised. And then I’ll be amazed by what happens!
Minnesotans aren’t the only people in need of spring. Spiritually speaking, the curse of sin has left considerable portions of the world depressingly drab and dirty. How many countries are plagued by poverty, exploitation, and conflict? How many precious human beings find their days painfully tarnished by shame or fear or guilt or anger or addiction (the list goes on). They need a “spring” of sorts. They need a new season of hope, renewal, and life!
We have a Savior – actually, he’s the Savior for the whole world! – who understands the drab and dirty. After all, he spent three days in a lifeless tomb. Dead. The disciples spent those days doubting and worrying. They’d forgotten that Jesus had given them a promise. There would be a resurrection! New life eventually comes. That’s what God does. Easter is his victory day, and spring is his season!
We live in God’s post-Easter season. The 2000 years since the resurrection of Jesus have been a non-stop and hope-filled spring of sorts, a continual season of new life. Now is God’s season! “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1 Peter 1:3 ESV)
It may look drearily drab and dirty in many parts of the world, and in many corners of our own lives and communities, but this is nonetheless God’s season! He is at work. Things will sprout and bud and blossom. Souls will be revived. “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus said. “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26 ESV) New life is coming! In fact, it’s already here to be received!
This promise is our hope, and it is the hope of the world. We have seen what God can do in a drab and dirty world. We will take what God has promised and turn it into prayer. We will take what we have seen and turn it into testimony.
Not all that long ago we urged you to pray with us for Christian Hospital Tank in Pakistan. Things looked a bit drab and dirty. We wondered if the hospital could survive. At the very least we wondered if we could continue in partnership. And then last fall terrible floods brought devastation to the facilities. What was to become of this precious outreach ministry? I am overjoyed to share with you that on this very day of my writing this article, we received an eye-witness report of all the “new life” that is sprouting up in that hospital! The security wall is being rebuilt. New classrooms and housing units are being constructed. New medical personnel, both Pakistani and expatriate, are now serving there. More than that, lives are being renewed through their work and testimony. Praise the God of life for these answers to our prayers!
Elsewhere in the world, we still await the clear signs of new life, the blossoming of the Kingdom, the restoration of souls. Many of our workers serve in places that are spiritually drab and dirty, but we know what God can do with the drab and dirty! Spring is his season! We pray into the promise of new life. We wait and we watch. We hope and we believe. And we pray some more. We will see it, and we will be amazed.