Maybe you're heard that saying about spring, "April showers bring May flowers." Even though here in New England that order can feel reversed (I'm sitting here writing this as it is raining outside... all day... in May!), the whole thrust of the cliché is that the drudgery of April gives way to the burst of spring in May. And we see much of that played out in the trees budding, the bushes blooming, the perennials coming back up, and the pollen count popping!
 
I, however, would add one more item to that May flowering cliché... our schedules. May just feels like the time of year when the demands on our time and schedules ramp up from kids' sports to school activities, from work rushing to meet quotas before the dead of summer to the rush of getting out in the sunshine for play and yard work. May just feels notoriously like a time when we are asked to pack in more than we have in previous months or will in the vacation season of summer. We are asked to not just be busy but to be hurried. Even I am feeling the rush and hurry with church activities, baseball season for Samuel, school activities for both my sons, the needs of the yard, and the desire to be outside soaking in the sunshine.
 
In that ramped up busyness, I feel as if I want to caution you and me in all of that because our ramped up rush in May can be exhilarating and exhausting and even devastating. It is exhilarating because we have newfound energies to do new things, but it is exhausting to do. And I would even add that it can be devastating because in our rush we can miss out on some of the most important things such as silence to listen for God, rest to replenish our souls, worship to renew hope with one another, and open doors to point people to Jesus.
 
So somehow in the midst of the hurry, we must find ways to slow so that we don't miss out on those more important things. Learning to say, "no" to some things. Prioritizing space for quiet before God. Pinpointing Sunday morning worship as a non-negotiable to revitalize faith and hope in Christ. Directing our schedules instead of our schedules directing us.
 
Though we are busy in May, let us not be hurried where we miss out on the more important things of life. And let us do that, so we may more deeply experience the full life in God that Jesus has brought by virtue of the cross.
 
Experiencing May Flowers With You,