Like other parts of the Midwest, Spring is coming late this year on the Back Forty.  As I write, the calendar says Spring has arrived, but snow is pelting the window. I’m a whiner about March anyway, so the late spring has made me a Champion Whiner.  {Trophy, please.}

There’s one difference, though.  I know it will end.  Rules of Mother Nature don’t lie.  Spring will always begin on March 20 even though it might be snowing.  I have faith and trust in the fact that March 20 means things are changing in the Earth even though the circumstances and snow around me say different.   Snow on March 20 and February 20 are different because one is in season and the other is not.  In March, I know better days are eminent.

Life and faith are similar.

There are times where circumstances around us dictate something contradictory to the Truth we know.  I mean the One and Only Truth – Jehovah God, Christ the Messiah, and the Holy Spirit.  Spiritual truth is relative depending on who you talk to, just like spring seems relative when snow pelts the ground trying to wake up.  But just as the rules of science say March 20 is Spring, the Word of God says God’s character is:

• gracious
• compassionate
• slow to anger
• abounding in love
• loving
• merciful
• kind
• patient
• forgiving
• holy
• just
• the list can go on.

When your world is dark and harsh snow is pelting in your face, what gives you hope?  When walking in the dark the other day and cold snow was stinging my cheeks, I despised the circumstances, but I had hope it would not be this way forever.  I knew it was Spring, despite what the weather said.  I knew sunshine, warm weather, and new growth would be here.  I believed the truth I knew regardless of what I was experiencing.

The more you get to know God’s character through His Word, through prayer, through petition, trust, and faith, the easier you can stand on the Truth of Who He is when storms surround you.  A.W. Tozer says, “What comes to our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us” (The Knowledge of The Holy, cited by Steven Furtick in Sun Stand Still, Multnomah Press).   Are you able to despise stormy circumstances while being hopeful in the Truth of God?

There have been difficult deaths in my circles lately.  Difficult storms of life that don’t seem to end.  When my own world came crashing down several years ago, shattering all images of God I knew up to that point, I could stand on one truth I knew, the character of God and promises of His word:

• He would never leave me or forsake me.
• He is good.
• He loves me. 
• He is personal.
• He is sovereign.
• He is trustworthy.
• He is not defined by my circumstances.

Do you need to know these truths?  As you seek Him in His word, you will find Him and his personal care for your situation.  Just as new life is pushing through the ground in the season of Spring, new growth and life are ready to burst through your situation even though the storms say, “Not Happening.” 

God does not change, just as the first day of Spring doesn’t change when there’s snow on the ground.  I challenge and encourage you to know Him in new ways that go down deep into your soul.   Shallow faith gets crushed when life’s storms come out of season.  But deep, trusting faith in His character is what sustains life when the dark, crushing elements invade your life.

Spring is here and So is Jesus.

Neither change,  Both are constant. No matter what the weatherman says.

Where do you need to believe that truth?

Blessed is the one…..whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither….. Psalm 1:1-3 (portions) NIV