Spring is one of my favorite seasons. I love seeing all the new plants and flowers pushing up out of the ground after being dormant all winter, and the trees adding their colors to the scenery with buds and blossoms. It’s incredible how the ground can be bare and brown one day, and the very next day have new shoots of green peaking through. As colorful buds form, we can see the drab landscape begin to transform into colorful Spring scenery.
That’s often how God works in our lives. He allows times of just being dormant, of having a winter season when the landscape of our life looks bare and drab to us. Then one day we realize something new is beginning to happen, and we see evidence of His transforming power at work in our life. Where we once saw our lives as bare and drab, we now see His hand coloring it with a new season of growth and change.
A common phrase heard during the winter season is “Spring fever”; when we get tired of the winter weather, longing for warmer, greener, longer and more colorful days. Many of us are anxious to get outside and dig in the dirt to plant a vegetable or flower garden, revive flower beds, and rake away the dry, dead weeds of winter to clear the way for new growth.
Some plants and flowers are strong enough to push up past last year’s leaves, fallen twigs, rocks and debris that washed over them during the rains and snowfalls, wind and weather of the winter months. But sometimes there’s too much weight on top of where the new plant is trying to sprout through, and it just dies in the ground.
I believe that if we’re listening for God’s voice, even during our personal winter seasons, we’ll hear Him tell us to wait patiently through the dormant time, knowing He is creating something new for us. He may instill a Spring fever in us by prompting us to clear away some dry, dead things in our life, to prepare for the new growth. Spiritual debris can build up while we’re waiting through our winter season, in the form of bitterness, unforgiveness, doubts, fears, unrepented sin, or failing to stay in a close relationship with God. The weight of that debris can hinder the new growth God has planned for us, and instead of sprouting up to produce what He intended for us, it just dies under the weight.
Just as there are seasons in nature, there are seasons in our spiritual walk. Being in a dormant, winter season spiritually may be preparation for a Springtime that God is planning for you. Always listen for His voice, stay close to Him, and clear away any debris that could hinder or suffocate the new thing He has for you.
“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19
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Hearing His Voice 