God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to Him forever and ever! Amen.
1 Peter 4:10-11 NLT
It is the very beginning of spring here in Pennsylvania which means it could snow for another month, or it could be 80 degrees next week—we never know! Generally, when it gets to March-April we know it is safe to start expecting a few nice days here and there. We had one such day the other week. The sun came out and the last pockets of snow that had been lurking in the shadows melted away. There was that fresh, rich smell of damp earth. I don’t know why the earth (dirt) smells so good at the very beginning of spring but it does! It’s one of those little things in life that makes me so thankful to live in a place where we have four distinct seasons—surely the damp earth only smells this good after a long winter—at least that’s what I tell myself!
For me, each season we experience outside brings with it a change within me as well. I look outside in the spring and I see the new bursting through the old. The daffodils poke their heads through a covering of brown leaves; new buds push through the old branch ends creating and adding new growth to the trees. How freeing it must feel to those new little buds to push through old limits and be set free to grow in the sunlight of spring! Is there something we should be pushing ourselves to get through this season so we can grow?
God has created each of us to do and love something specific. Have you ever noticed that when we are doing “the thing” we are made for, that we come away feeling refreshed and even more energized than when we started? Have you experienced that? Do you know what “your thing” is? I assure you, even if you don’t feel like you have any particular talents, there is something. There is something that when you do it, time ceases to exist for you. It may not be anything fancy. For me, when I am engaged in a creative endeavor, I “lose track of time” and become totally absorbed in whatever I am working on (a hard thing for a tightly wound, Type A kind of person to do).
If you are feeling run down and worn out, it doesn’t matter how much you pare down and strip from your schedule, you will not feel refreshed until you spend time doing the thing you were made to do. You may have to scale back on other things so you have time do what you love, but adding the thing that you love is life-giving. It is rejuvenating. Don’t be afraid to try something new—stretch yourself—you may be surprised!
This spring I encourage you to pause, breathe in the fresh, damp smell of new life emerging and think about what God has created you to love and do that. Do it whole-heartedly and unto the Lord! Feel new life being breathed into you this spring.
P.S.
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See the sermon from our pastor that I mentioned here: Life or Death