Burst Into Bloom!
It has been so wonderful to see our parking lots filling up at Pine Valley United Methodist Church. Most of our adult Sunday school classes gather in person. Small groups are meeting together. More and more children are coming up for the children’s moment. It is so exciting to see these things because it has been a long year, and many of us found ourselves in the wilderness. At the beginning of 2020, I felt God had brought me on a thirty-year journey and was getting ready to unleash me to do the thing He made me for. Things were falling into place. I was scared to death and so excited. The next week COVID brought everything to a screeching halt! Why? I had to believe what God told me He would honor. I began thanking Him for what He is doing to prepare the way. In the meantime, I learn faith and patience.
In a staff meeting, our devotional was listening to Pastor Joakim Lundqvist’s “Dream Big in 2021.” It was just what I needed to hear. He began his story about Death Valley in Nevada that is so barren, and nothing grows there. This area never sees rain, but in 2005, they had a rainstorm. The whole desert was turned into a beautiful garden. People came from all over the world to see this miracle. While listening to him, I was seeing 2020 as our Death Valley. Isaiah 35:1-2, “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.”
He reminded us that 2021 may be the year of the big rain. God put seeds in our hearts when we were made, and some of them may have 2021 on them! Psalm 139:13-16, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Before God said, “let there be light,” He was planting our seeds! Ephesians 1:4, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love.” Just like the seeds in the ground, we have to wait for the right time for them to blossom. We also have to have good ground for them to blossom. We do that by having our heart right. Something else I learned was that “heart” is the second most used word in the Bible, only to the name of the Lord! I would say that shows how important our heart is!
This guy says to dream big. Pastor Tim says not to put a lid on what God can do, and I call it “God showing off!!” God can come up with something so much better than we can ever think of! Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” I also like the way Tommy Barnett says it. Dreams “are the goals and visions that fire your heart and saturate your soul with joy at the very thought of them. They are those continuing visions of what you want your life to be at its highest level of fulfillment…” I think we get passionate about those things that have our spiritual DNA in them. Barnett also goes on to say that “a dream doesn't drive you; it draws you.” God designed all of us to have a dream!
One of my plants has outgrown two pots, so I have decided that this spring I am going to buy a huge pot - I am going to dream big! Every time God’s good rain falls on it, that thing grows by leaps and bounds. I believe this is the same way God is going to have the Holy Spirit rain down on our lives when it is time for Him to show off with those seeds! I believe God is challenging us to dream big in 2021! That is probably why we had to go through 2020 - to prepare our hearts for fertile ground!
During this Easter season, it is time to dream big! Where flowers bloom, so does hope! Let’s be like the crocus and burst into bloom while rejoicing greatly and shouting for joy! Wishing you all the Easter effect blessings!