March: Lion, Lamb or Snail

And we know that God causes all things to work together to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

Ah, the seasons! They are truly one of God’s best ideas. We see His invisible hand in June’s full-flowering beauty, September’s glorious bounty and the pristine purity of December’s first snow. So, what can we say about March?

As a little girl, I took seriously the maxim that “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb” and I believed that March’s one job was to escort in the next season. (Something it did with varying degrees of success.) Many years of living have helped me understand the very grown-up lesson that March wants to teach us. It is the lesson of waiting.

Waiting is one of the Bible’s big themes. Abraham waited for a son, Moses waited forty years in the Midian desert, David waited to be king and Jesus waited in a little shop in Nazareth for his hour to come (John 2:4). It would not be an exaggeration to say that Scripture is a record of God’s people waiting.

Waiting—especially the “why” and “how long”--is a mystery, at least from our side of things. Preachers tell us that Moses was sent to the desert to tame his temper and teach him how to lead. But why forty years? Moses was a smart guy. Wouldn’t ten or twenty years have done the trick?

And you? Aren’t you more than ready for that godly mate or that well-deserved promotion? For the people of God, waiting is not the absence of anything, but the fulfillment of something. What that “something” is, we may never know. But God does.

Here we are, back at the corner of March and Waiting where a cold, rainy day has most of us wishing for a meteorological fast-forward button. But under the earth, it is another story. Slowly warming soil and spring rains signal to the root systems of trees and plants that this is their hour as they reach down and spread out to support next year’s growth.

Would you cut off the roots of a plant to “help” nourishment reach the leaves and flowers faster? Would you sidetrack God’s plan and replace it with one powered by your own perspective? What God is doing today to prepare you for the future He has for you may seems as impossible as May’s flowers on March’s lifeless branches. In God’s time, it will not fail to bud, bloom and flourish.

Nancy Shirah