Spring is welcome in its freshness. The long and dreary winter helps us to appreciate spring’s warmth, and its promise of summer enhances its present delights. Our lives also reflect the possibility of refreshing newness. After periods of spiritual depression, it is delightful to see the light of the Son of Righteousness again. A wonderful spiritual leader, Alistair Begg, once said, “Our slumbering graces rise from their lethargy, like the crocus and the daffodil from their beds of earth; and our heart is made glad with delicious notes of gratitude, far more tuneful than the warbling of birds. The comforting assurance of peace, which is infinitely more delightful than the turtledove’s cooing, is heard within the soul.” How wonderful it is to know we, too, have the ability to know the newness of our spiritual lives.

This is the time for our souls to seek communion with the Beloved. In this time after the Crucifixion and Resurrection, we are to move past the sadness and look forward to the refreshing feeling of gathering in our blessings. If we do not hoist the sail when the breeze is favorable, we make a grave mistake: Times of refreshing should never be allowed to pass us by. When Jesus Himself visits us in tenderness and asks us to arise, can we be so ungrateful as to refuse His request? He has risen so that He may draw us after Him. He, by His Holy Spirit, has revived us so that we may, in newness of life, enjoy fellowship with Him. We bid farewell to the coldness and indifference of a spiritual winter when the Lord creates a spring within. Refreshment is a welcoming experience. The refreshment of our Lord within us is priceless.