He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 2 Cor 1:21-22
Spring is almost here as evidenced by the buckeye tree. Gray mud from the creek morphs into its spent inanimate trunk. However, out on the tip of each skyward twig, if one looks closely, are lime-green buds. As much as I hate to use the trite phrase ‘bursting forth,’ there is indeed a lot of bursting and forthing going on. The florets of exploding popcorn are incongruent with the hard rough bark; as though pasted on by a clumsy florist. I ask myself how these silky, vibrant, outbursts of life can come from so dead a thing as this wintering tree? The answer: Deep in the heart of the sleeping shell lives an ooze of sap carrying the DNA for what is to be.
I am that tree; a dormant dry shell of the life and “glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18). Through Christ, I will burst into a form of life incongruent with the present. All I see now is gray trunk, but I can’t doubt it for one second. I hold a guarantee. The proof is in the Word of God, in that tree, and in my heart. Deep inside me is an oozing trace of the life that will be. The Holy Spirit is my deposit—my hint of the ecstasy found before the Throne.
Even in my dark winter, I carry the spiritual mapping of what I will be when spring arrives. The Spirit will ignite my true DNA and I will explode in transformation. I will look back on this present form and the link to my new body will be traceable but the similarity between the two will be no more than night is to day, or a caterpillar is to its butterfly, or a gray stump is to the leafed-out flowering buckeye.
Prayer: Sweet Spirit, thank You for Your holy deposit inside me.
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