Spring is here!

As daffodils spring up around us, Jim Burns (Dunstable) celebrates brightening days.

We’re now in meteorological spring, with the prospect of lighter nights and warmer days. You will already have seen evidence of new life around you, as trees come into bud and snowdrops push themselves through the soil. How much better we begin to feel, knowing that winter has gone ... or so we hope!

With winter behind us, we can confirm the truth of the words found in Genesis 8:22: ‘As long as the Earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.’

I am florally challenged, but I have been pleased to see miniature daffodils – or are they narcissi? – appearing in clumps along the grass verges near where I live. I wonder if these small flowers feel inferior to their larger brothers and sisters – although, if they are narcissi, perhaps they have enough narcissistic self-love to make up for any shortage of height!

Although these flowers emerge year after year, I am still surprised when they pop up. They remind me of the William Wordsworth poem ‘Daffodils’, although the flowers I see could not be described, as Wordsworth calls them, as a ‘crowd’ or ‘host’.

When you were at school, did you have to learn about the collective noun to describe a group of animals? A flock of sheep, a herd of cows or a school of fish? How strange that a group of crows is commonly called a murder. The flowers near my home could not be termed a meadow or a carpet, but that doesn’t stop them bringing pleasure to those who see them – confirmation that good things can come in small amounts!

No one knows who planted these daffodils, whether it was one person or a community group that wanted to brighten up otherwise bland-seeming grass. It would have been an investment of time and money on their part to buy and then plant the bulbs – perhaps they will never know the pleasure they have brought over the years since. And, of course, our thanks also belong to God, who continues to create and recreate life in nature each spring.

All this reminds me of the Bible verse that says: ‘Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you’ (Matthew 6:4 New Living Translation). Although the verse refers to monetary giving, it applies equally to what we do for others; giving and expecting nothing in return. What can you do for others, however small, to brighten their day during this season?

Reflect and respond

• Reflect on Genesis 8:22. Thank God for the beauty of his creation and the faithfulness of his provision.
• Take a moment to notice what’s brought you hope or brightened your day this week. Give thanks for it.
• Pray for God to prompt you when opportunities arise to bring hope to someone else.