With each annual voyage the earth makes around the sun, we’re afforded a window of time bursting with miracles. Every spring, we’re offered visuals of “every good gift,” “new morning mercies,” and “grace upon grace.” This slice of our year brims with opportunity to retrain our gaze on the work God is doing right in front of us. Spring is a resounding chorus — no matter what the refrains in between bring, we always return to its repetitive, dependable melody of God’s creation. He is at work on earth!

Spring’s early breeze carries with it a whisper from Isaiah 43:19, “Behold, I am going to do something new, now it will spring up; will you not be aware of it?” However, walking into spring after a harsh and hurting winter can leave us tone-deaf to God’s voice. Do we hear Him exclaiming, “See!” and look in the wrong direction? Are we searching for the work we wish to see Him doing around us, all while missing the work He wants to do within us?

One of the first notes of spring is often missed if we’re not looking for it. Draba, a humble and overlooked ground cover of blooms, serves as a faint whisper of hope — the growing season is coming! This meek carpet of flowers is afforded little attention in botany books, but author Aldo Leopold once wrote of it, “He who hopes for spring with upturned eye never sees so small a thing as draba … He who searches for spring with his knees in the mud finds it, in abundance.”

Isaiah 5:18-19 warns us, “Woe to those … who say, ‘Let God hurry; let Him hasten His work so we may see it. The plan of the Holy One of Israel—let it approach, let it come into view, so we may know it.’”

It is one thing to eagerly watch God at work in our lives. It is another thing to, in doubt or impatience, rush Him in that work, missing all along the way the miracles dotting the ground around our feet. If we’re so busy watching for God to grow a magnificent magnolia tree, we’re apt to miss the carpet of splendor He lays at our feet each spring in the minute white petals of the draba flowers.

Unconfined by time, God is patient and particular about the work He is doing. Perhaps before growing the crop in the field, He wants to grow the heart of the farmer. Maybe before bringing forth the vineyard, He desires to cultivate the spirit of the vine-dresser. Perhaps, before calling forth buds from the bed of gardenias, He wants to work in the soul of the gardener. This spring, may we not hesitate to press our knees into the mud. May we search for the draba — the hints of miracle and life springing up all around us. May we heed God’s invitation to “be still” in the soil — to know He is God, and He is a life-bringer. Listen to “Be Still And Know” from “Hidden In My Heart, Volume I.”