For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. – Psalm 57:10 (NIV)
Today I looked out my kitchen window into the leafless plum tree in my front yard. It is March 1, and only tiny buds appear on that tree, for it is not yet the official season of spring. Much to my heart’s delight, a fat, little robin was perched on one of the upper branches. Just as I spotted the bird, it began to sing to me! (Okay, maybe it wasn’t actually singing to me, but allow me to entertain the thought.) The familiar song of the common robin brought a hugely comforting feeling to my heart: spring is near!
In the dead of winter it is hard to imagine that warmer and longer days will ever arrive. With the temperatures still cool and the brown of leafless branches yet the main color of the horizon, it is also difficult to picture the vibrant activity and color of summer. Yet, the little robin reminds us that the season is surely changing. With uncanny regularity, spring follows winter. The timeless, promise of Genesis 8:27 (NIV) stands true, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
The robin’s cheerful song and orange breast on that brown branch reminded me of something else – God’s faithfulness. Flying right into the face of the cold and dormant nature of winter comes the color and activity of spring! In the same way that God is faithful to turn the seasons because of His promises, we know that He is faithful to turn our lives because of His promises. Flying right into the face of your dark and sad day will come the light and hope of a new life season. God promises to never give to us more than we can bear (I Corinthians 10:13). Even the man, Job, said, “But he knows the way I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold” (Job 23:10, NIV).
That little songbird brought to the forefront Psalm 57:10 (NIV), “For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.” Surely, God’s steadfast nature reaches to the very skies of our world, delivering robins to Western Pennsylvania as a deposit on the promise of summer. God’s faithfulness reaches similarly to the skies of your life, setting forth the deposit on the promise of a season of healing and joy. Ecclesiastes 3:3-4 aptly proclaims, “[There is] a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”
God’s faithfulness reaches to both the skies and to the most remote and broken part of our human hearts. In fact, there is no place to which His faithfulness does not extend. That is why the Psalmist could say in 57:5 (NIV), “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.” As God is lifted up far past the expanse of this universe, so the hope He gives in His promises far surpasses all the difficulty we face. As He delivers the songbird at the start of spring, so He delivers hope to your heart even as your “winter” goes on. It won’t be long. He is reliable. He keeps His promise. So, let us be like the little robin in my leafless tree set against the gray sky, and let us sing – despite the current weather. For, we know spring is on the way. “I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples” (Psalm 57:9, NIV).