I love spring flowers: the vibrancy of the different colours after the bleakness of winter, the perkiness of daffodils and tulips in particular.
Tulips have a tendency to droop, however, and I’ve discovered this is because they need a lot of water. Florists advise us to trim tulips by 3-5 cm and cut the stems at an angle to give as much surface area to drink from, to keep them away from direct sunlight and fruit and to change the water frequently in order to keep them perky!
We can be a bit like tulips: sometimes perky, but often droopy! Psalm 24 tells us twice, ‘Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.‘ (Ps 24:7, 9) Psalm 3:3 says, ‘But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.‘ At the risk of repeating myself yet again, we need to come to God and drink from His river of delights if we are to lift up our heads. More than ever, we need to do this now, to set our hearts, our minds and our emotions on things above. (Col 3:1-3) Only then will we be lifted from despondency and despair to vibrancy and hope.
