Spring

I love the timing of how things work in my life. For example, I am starting over in my reading of the bible. Genesis, the book of beginnings. As I look out my window, my favorite Spring time tree is budding its small plumb colored leaves. Soon this tree will be covered with beautiful pink flowers. My colors that I see will turn from cold white to red, green, and pink, outlined with the blue of the sky behind them. The grass is turning from a hard brown to green, and will soon be a lush garden for my feet. Spring, the time of new beginnings. Right now, because I am in it, this is my favorite time of year. Winters are long in the mountains. The snow and cold seem to last forever, but the Spring is here and the birds are singing again.

I love to study the word. This is the only book that will give you something new to think about every time you start to read it again. The other day I was watching a program on TV where a Jewish Rabbi gives lessons from his Jewish background. He took the verse in Genesis 3 that says, "So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. After banishing them from the garden, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the Garden of Eden. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."

I heard something new in his teachings. Now I do not know if he was correct or not, but it is an interesting way to see Genesis new for me, again. He took the word "banished" and explained how the actual translation means "divorced." And the cherubim were not really there to keep them out, but to show them the way back. They were stationed in the garden to help remind the people of their loss, but to also help them see their way back home.

So if we change the wording a little to the actual translation it reads, "So the Lord God divorced them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. After divorcing them from the garden, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the Garden of Eden. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard (show) the way to the tree of life."

From the beginning God has been calling us back to Him. He wants us to see His newness. He wants us to see His wonder, even in the midst of the long winter. There is always Spring coming, no matter what has happened in the past.

Oswald Chambers, "Our circumstances are the means God uses to exhibit just how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure His Son is. Discovering a new way of manifesting the Son of God should make our heart beat with renewed excitement. It is one thing to choose adversity, and quite another to enter into adversity through the orchestrating of our circumstances by God’s sovereignty. And if God puts you into adversity, He is adequately sufficient to 'supply all your need' (Philippians 4:19).

Keep your soul properly conditioned to manifest the life of the Son of God. Never live on your memories of past experiences, but let the Word of God always be living and active in you." Can you see the change ahead of you? Can you hear the new lesson from pages of old? Can you take the hurtful things that have already been written and see in them the Glory of God?

Allow God to make your past a foundation in which you stand on. If you will do this, you will be able to see His mighty swords pointing you back to Him. We cannot live in our past, but it can be the foundation to our future. Our future is in seeing the beauty of the Cross and the mighty power of His forgiveness. In this way, we will be able to sing with the birds, on this new Spring day.