Spring Break

It comes around each year and we especially notice the implied season change it is we have children still in school. The older ones seem to scatter towards warm waters or snow covered mountains while some little ones, like my four year old grandson, just want to stay in a hotel, no mater where it is. But kids or no kids there is something awakening and fresh about new flowers in bloom, birds signing, pretty weather that makes you want to be outside, and light little cool breezes at night. It is a break time to celebrate the change of seasons.

Springtime is a season of new beginnings...new life, new growth, new opportunities, and a new perspectives. A time to clean out some of the rubbish that we have stored up, sweep out the dust that has gathered behind closed doors, and open the windows and doors of our hearts to accept God's fresh winds of grace. For those winds have the capacity to gently blow out the yuk stuff that we have allowed to lay unfeathered for a season....

I gathered up the contents of my untouched desk for weeks yesterday...and sat outside on that beautiful day and went through the paperwork....that continually haunts me, and I ran across some notes that I had taken in January on Forgiveness. It occurred to me that Spingtime and Forgiveness have a lot in common. For forgiveness represents a new season in a relationship just as spring represents our new relationship with nature. Just as the seasons change so have we who have accepted the fact that Jesus laid down his life for us so that we could have a new beginning.

It has been said that Forgiveness is the deepest need of the heart....and Jesus is the only one who has the ultimate power to forgive ALL of the sins that we have engaged in through our natural sin nature. His very word has "POWER"..."in the name of Jesus"....you are forgiven...we hear that all through the bible. But when I think of forgiveness I so many times lean to the forgiveness of others....for what they have done to me...and forget to point the finger right back to myself and ask forgiveness for what I have done to others. I do want new beginnings.. I need new beginnings...but the only way to blow out soem of the debris that I have let accumulate within my heart and mind and soul is to let God's grace and forgiveness give me a cleaned off slate of thought....so that I am able to let new beginnings bloom forth.

The are two things about forgiveness:
1) Faith is an essential prerequisite to forgiveness
2) Healing is the proof of forgiveness.

We are unable to forgive all that we do...becasue sometimes we are unaware of how we have messed up, or too prideful to confess it or too hurt to release it. But Jesus is able to forgive us and bring on a new season in relationships...beginning with the relationship with Himself. But we must have faith in order for himm to proceed. Just an ounce of faith to begin with and he will grow it into a blooming beauty for the world to see. Faith...Faith in who God is...Faith in his ultimate authority, Faith in his
untainted character, Faith in His uncompromising quest for His best for each of us...Faith in knowing that we are never left to fight through our challenges alone, and Faith that God is centered in Love...for each of his precious children.

If we want to experience a season of growth and change and transformation in our lives...we have to begin first by asking God to give us the ability to forgive ourselves....to accept His blanket of forgiveness to cover us and not allow the grudges and shame that we have tucked away to stay unnoticed and untouched and unattended. We all have something that lies in the dark
shadows of past seasons...but God has given us a new season....to bloom. And it begins today...Spring is a time to "break" through what the past seasons have left behind.......For just as the season of Springtime comes to us at this time...God too has come to us to restore His unseen beauty that he knows is resting just beneath our surface. The roots of love have been planted, the roots of forgiveness have been established...but it is our faith that God will use to make us grow.

Spring Break...is a time to celebrate and break through....the
past seasons that have often held us hostage. It is a time of joy and new life and new perspective. And if we are having a tough time finding that joy then all we have to do is have faith, I mean real faith and an honest belief, that when we ask God for it, and we desire it from the bottom of our hearts, that he will help us to find it.
Daniel 2:20-22

20 and said:
"Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever;
wisdom and power are his.

21 He changes times and seasons;
he sets up kings and deposes them.
He gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to the discerning.

22 He reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what lies in darkness,
and light dwells with him.

Dear Lord, Thank you for the seasons that you give us in this lifetime. For in each one there is a time for your plans to be carried out in us and through us. Help us to look to this season of Spring as a time of refreshment, of forgiveness, of joy, and of restoration. Amen

Praise God wherever you are or whatever situation he has allowed you to be in...for His glory will shine through.

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