May 14, 2001

CYBERCOLUMN:
Glorious spring
___By John Duncan
___I’m sitting here under the old oak tree watching puffy clouds roll overhead like cotton balls floating in the air. The grandeur of God hovers like a butterfly over a flower as the spring season winds down.
___Oh, glorious spring! It paints the world with color--green grass, orange fruit and purple

JOHN DUNCAN

flowers. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins applauded spring: "Nothing is so beautiful as spring--when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush."
___Spring hails as the season of drenching rains with the patter of water hitting your windshield or roof. Water refreshes the landscape, sprinkling earth with God’s glory.
___Farmers know beautiful spring as the season of sowing seeds.
___I once pastored a church in Locker, Texas. The community blossomed with simplicity--a white-frame church, an outhouse, rows of fence, grazing cows, rolling hills and a Texas farm-to-market road.
___Church leaders farmed to make their living. Peanut farmers told tales of planting seeds, harvesting crops, wrestling with rattle snakes in bins and hauling the crop to market. The locals celebrated harvest time, the climax of hard work come to fruition. No harvest, though, arrived without seed sowing.
___Farmer Merle Taylor once offered this city boy some advice: "If you’re gonna be a farmer, you gotta have faith. You till the soil, plants the seeds, and hope it rains. You wait a lot. It takes faith in God to be a farmer."
___Jesus spoke of sowing seeds. He sat by the sea, unfolding a story of wonder. A farmer sowed seed. Some fell along the path, some on rocks, some among the thorns, and some on good soil (Matthew 13:1-9). The seeds that fell on good soil produced a crop.
___Celebrate spring, that season of asking God to break up the hard ground of the heart, to plant his seed in the soul and to send the rain of his Spirit to bear fruit. It takes faith to sow the seed and faith to bloom like Jesus where you’re planted. Nothing is so lovely as spring!

___John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines.




Get printer-friendly version of this story



Send this story to a friend

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

---

Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!