| Of seasons and seeds |

Facebook is bustling with status' about spring, sunshine, and the demise of winter. Perhaps I'm unique, but I'm not ready for spring just yet. For me, the season of winter is full of the beauty of death. Morbidity aside, death is a much needed part of life. The very act of repentance - indeed the very symbolism of baptism - is death to some lifestyle and life to another.

Consider the imagery of pruning in the study of plants. Sometimes plants need to get rid of their dead weight in order to sustain the rest of their life. Emily and I recently bought a plant from Ikea. We live in a basement and it doesn't get much sunlight. So after a few weeks of some leaves turning brown and falling off, it is now healthy; it can sustain all the leaves it boasts on its branches.

All of this to say, I'm not convinced I'm ready for spring. I still have much to consider and much reflection to endure before I'm ready for the newness of life that spring brings. I find it odd that the Lenten season falls in the season of spring. It's easy to link resurrection and Easter to the season of spring. It's not so easy to link Jesus' journey to the cross - or His gruesome suffering and death - with spring. However, perhaps that is what the gospel of John would articulate, that there is celebration even in the death of Jesus. With this in mind, I'm pretty excited about preaching on March 20 in the sermon series about the passion week of Jesus in the gospel of John.

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In other news, I received a word from God today. It was no audible word, but it was unquestionably from God. Today at Tyndale Tuesday chapel, the preacher was preaching on the widely known passage from Acts 1:8, about being witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. He said this: the disciples were not from Jerusalem. They were men of Galilee; the angel even greets them that way in Acts 1:11.

To this he noted, our 'Jerusalem' is not our home. Instead, it's where we are right now. For me, my Jerusalem is Toronto. And he said that we should not be quick to run for our 'ends of the earth' immediately. We should work from our 'Jerusalem' outward. And so while I loved my experience in Czech, and I see a need, (and I'll likely go back next year), I need to tend to my 'Jerusalem' - Toronto.

And so I feel confident that God is planting seeds in my heart that will one day flourish into some sort of ministry abroad. But right now, the seeds that God planted in my heart for Toronto are flourishing and I need to grab hold of what God has given me.

I also want to make mention that I write about me. I don't want to speak on behalf of my darling wife Emily, but she is definitely in the picture. So much of God's will depends on where God is calling her - where God is calling both of us. I'm just simply using this blog as a means to communicate my own thoughts and reflections.

Cheers.