As the warmth returns ....

daffodil CU
Originally uploaded by byrdmn2.

one of the sure signs that Spring is right around the corner is the daffodils in DC. This year they are very welcome. February was quite bitter (even though I did manage to escape the cold for some of the time). Even this week temperatures were in the single digits at night and it seemed like everything was hard frozen. It made you want to draw your head inside your parka like a turtle going into his shell.

But not today, thank God.

Today the temperature is in the 60s in DC, and the flowers - and the tourists - are beginning to return. We had the whole Scooter Libby BS trial and talk of Bush pardoning him and Newt Gingrich admitting an affair and all the other inside the beltway crap that occupies the pundits.

But the flowers don't care at all. Neither do the birds. It doesn't matter to them that the time change is two weeks early or that Bush is in South America or that the Beltway Madam is threatening to sell her phone list.

Nope. All they care about is sunshine, water, and maybe a little mulch and horse manure.

Jesus said we are not supposed to worry about our clothes, because God will care for us. In Matthew, Jesus said to consider the lilies of the field - they neither toil nor spin, but even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like them. And then he asks "if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"

Hmmmmmm. An interesting thought. Some of us seem to think that we have to earn God's kindness. Oh, we might not say that openly; we will mouth the right words, but deep in our hearts, we're afraid. We're afraid that maybe God is really angry at us after all. That he won't take as good care of us as he does the grass and the birds. That he will let us fall into destruction.

Our culture places a big emphasis on performance - a person's value is determined by what they do, not who they are. It's insidious - it happens in commericals, in radio and television, on the Internet, etc.

But God's evaluation of us is based on Jesus' righteousness. The performance bill has been paid - by Christ, because we could not pay it and because of His great love for us. To think that our deeds could somehow earn God's favor is foolish; if that were the case we are all destined for hell. But we can be as righteous as Jesus by accepting - putting our trust in - what He has done for us.