Shh…Listen (Spring has something to say.)

For more than just a few reasons, I’ve been at a loss for words lately – and it’s been to my gain.

We’ve been traveling, and there are new sounds. It has rained hard where we are – not like the drizzle my kids are used to. My two-year-old said to me the other night, “Shh…listen.” So I did. And so I am.

I am sitting silent and Creation all around me is going wild with springtime joy. The crickets and frogs are doing their best to outshout each other in praise of their Maker at this very moment (and of course, to entice that mate…but since He’s the One who told them to do that, it’s still an act of worship). My children are breathing sleep’s deep rhythms just a few feet away. The heater kicks on at intervals with a homey sound to drown out the happy clamour for a few moments, and then the night songs return.

It's good to listen.

When I listen to Creation, I hear joy – the joy of being made, born, hatched, sprouted, alive, existing, thought-up-by-the-Living-God. Creation may be waiting and longing for all that Jesus did to be revealed in us (Romans 8:22), but Creation is certainly not depressed. It’s not a muted, weak, watered-down, sepia-toned, half-alive existence we’ve been given on this planet. No, that’s not what Jesus died for. It’s the real deal He offers us and it starts now. If you don’t already know that, just listen:

The frogs will croak it.

The bees will buzz it to you.

The robins will dance it out on a just-cut lawn.

The salmon will splash upstream with the knowledge of it.

The whales will sing and breach, the leaves will rustle, the rivers will rush, the dew will drip-drip, the rain will drum, the pebbles will clack, the ice will crack and those crickets will scratch it out on their violin-legs all night long.

Wherever you are, there is something speaking with joy of the expectation that life holds because of Jesus. That is what the Christ offers to me. To you.

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!

That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

(Romans 8:15-25, The Message)

Ambushed by God in the Night Songs of Spring,

Kimberly