Spring is probably my favorite time of year. The grass turns green. The birds reappear. The trees start making shade. The sun finally feels warm again. I really enjoy watching everything come back to life. If I have a chance to take it all in I might even start to reflect on how God breathes new life into his creation and his people. It’s no small miracle to take what was dead and make it alive. Who else can do that? 

I’m watching out the window of my office as I write this and a bird just ripped up a beakful of old grass and flew off to make a nest. Such a simple act, yet filled with significance – taking something with no further purpose and weaving it into a birthplace for new life. I’m not much of a poet, but even I see the poetry in this. God takes what is broken and gives it new meaning. Isn’t that your story and mine? You wouldn’t have to look very hard at my life to see that I can make a mess of things. Yet who I once was isn’t who I am today. And not only that, God gives my life and yours new meaning and value. As a result we place our faith in who God is and what he does in us.

Faith moves us. In contrast, it is easy to think of religion as stuffy, static, unchanging, and unmoving. But that isn’t what God the Father instructed in the Old Testament or what God the Son taught in the New Testament. The prophet Micah famously said, “The Lord has told you what is good. This is what he requires of you: act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with the Lord your God” (Micah 6:8). In that last phrase the keyword is “walk.” As often as I’ve read this, I only recently connected this phrase with movement. Yes, there is a symbolic and spiritual aspect to this command as well. Yet there is no denying that the phrase is an instruction to walk, to move, to get up and get going. 

Jesus similarly said, “follow me.” If you are going to follow a person that means you must get on your feet and get moving. You do what he does. You go where he goes. Anything short of that is defiance. Defiance is sitting down with crossed arms and refusal to move. God says, “stand up and walk with me. Extend a hand to those that need kindness and mercy. Do what is right not just for yourself but for your neighbors and ultimately for the Lord.”

Apostle Paul used an analogy of incredible artwork to describe all this. He said in a letter to the church, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10 NLT). Not only does God care about you to the point of comparing you to his best work, but he also cares about what we do. It’s one thing for an artist to make his best piece of art. It’s another thing entirely for the artist’s art to make more art that points back to the artist. And it has been his plan for a long time. Who compares to Him?

That bird outside my window was doing everything it knew to do – gathering grass, building a nest, preparing for the family, and making its own incredible art. And it was singing while it was working. Tomorrow the rain may come, the wind may blow, the work it did today might be undone. We never know what our storms might look like or when they’ll come, but today will we walk in what is good? Sing a song of thanksgiving, work hard at today’s tasks, and enjoy the warmth of the Son as you walk with him.

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(This will appear in the Pastor’s Corner of The Sheridan Press on April 26, 2024.)