It’s no secret how much I love spring. It’s by far my favorite season, and I look forward to it all winter with fervent expectation. This year, because of the alternating cold and warm spells, spring is slower to reveal its abundance, which is fine by me. Someday I would like to repeat a trip that Edwin Way Teale made with his wife, Nellie, to journal the advance of spring from the southern states to the most northern. That journey became one of a series of books he wrote, my favorite one, North with the Spring: A Naturalist’s Record of a 17,000 Mile Journey with the American Spring.
Teale was a Pulitzer prize-winning author of many books on nature. This one is well celebrated. My all-time favorite is: A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm. In it, Teale relates his notes on a year spent in and around their farmhouse in Hampton, Connecticut. He describes the wildlife, the plants and trees, the fields, the insects and birds in extraordinary detail and reverence. Audubon has now preserved both his home and the seventy-five acres surrounding it. I’ve walked the deep woodland paths carpeted with ferns, sat by the pond with its beaver hutches, and marveled at the life he and Nellie carved out for themselves of simplicity and wonder.
I know I would have enjoyed spending time with Teale or sharing a cup of tea, chatting about what he’d seen that day. His study is preserved as if he just left it with all sorts of writings and specimens from his adventures. My own walks here in the nature preserve mimic much of his pattern and awe at the created world as it unfolds before us in the spring. I too have a cadre of souvenirs from my rambles. Today was one of those days where I spent several leisurely hours in the forest. In previous blogs, I’ve mentioned that a thoughtful person placed chairs on the deck overlooking the marsh. Now they’ve added two more on top of a hill overlooking another section of the marsh. Settling into a chair, the only sounds you can hear are bird calls, a woodpecker hunting for bugs and an occasional squirrel prancing in the woods or a duck trying to out quack his companions.
I keep a calendar of first sightings in the woods. The bloodroot and anemones which I wrote about last week are the first wildflowers to appear. This week you can see the seed pod of the bloodroot and the pure white anemones are still bordering the trail and filling the sunny hillsides. I saw another swallowtail butterfly which I followed along the path until it chose the woodland. It’s warm enough now so the snakes are often out sunning themselves, so I rarely go off the beaten path.
I hope we don’t take springtime for granted. It’s such a reflection of how the Lord provides for us. We all love something new whether it’s a new car, garden plant, clothing, bottle of wine, cell phone, you name it. There is something refreshing and delightful about something new. It displaces the old and we enjoy the change. But soon that too can become old if we are not careful.
One of the most lasting characteristics of those who take Christ as Lord and Savior is that we become a new creation. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (1)
This is good news indeed. We become a new creation when Christ comes to live in us. And He continues to renew us day by day. We are constantly being made new as we allow Christ to conform us into His likeness. I love the way Warren Wiersbe says, “God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with Him.” (2) I’d like to have that hanging on my wall someday to remind me to submit always to His will.
The Lord admonishes us not to miss this transformation. In Isaiah He says,
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (3)
My favorite part of that verse is, will you not see it? Don’t miss my work in you. It’s new every morning. Every day is a fresh chance to grow in Him, love Him and serve Him. Every day, He makes the promise that He is making all things new. Someday, He will create a totally new heaven and a new earth. I suspect when that happens, we will no longer be looking for some material object that is new. When that happens, everything around us will be new, including ourselves. What a promise we have of His faithfulness to come! Spring is a yearly reminder of that promise.
“He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’”
Revelation 21:5
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV
- Wiersbe Warren W., Heirs of the King, page 34
- Isaiah 43:19 NIV
