Clap Your Hands

Maple Tap at St. Luke

You know that spring is just around the corner when you see the sap buckets hanging on the maple trees.  The fields and trees are still brown and bare, but the air is getting warmer. In March there is a very short season when the temperatures are above freezing in the daytime and below freezing at night. That is when the sugar sap starts flowing; it is harvest time in the maple grove. This is something to celebrate!

"You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands" (Isaiah 55:12).

Season by season the maple trees perform their duties and live out the purpose for which God created them . . . budding and blooming with new life in spring . . . stretching out their arms to provide shade and shelter in summer . . . blazing with rich colors of red, orange and gold in fall . . .  turning starch into sweet flowing sap in the last days of winter. . .  All of their works give praise and glory to God.  The trees are clapping their hands!

Through every season of our lives God gives us a purpose . . . His purpose! It is for this reason that He created us, saved us, and now calls us to love and serve Him and others. Do you see God's purpose in your life?  Does it give you joy to give Him glory?  Clap your hands!

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourseves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" 

(Ephesians 2:8-10).