I think my favorite flower is the daffodil. I love the different shades of yellow and how, here in the south, they appear in such random places. What I love the most about daffodils, though, is for me, they signal the coming of spring. I am no fan of winter. By the time the end of February is upon us, I am one more cold snap from snapping myself. So the appearance of the daffodils settles my soul and reassures me that God is just about to move the dial once again to a warmer, more beautiful, season.

But here is the truth about the daffodil. Long before I notice their yellow blooms, long before they began pushing their way through the cold ground to hail the turning of the season, long before that, there was activity below the surface. While it was still winter up here, God was stirring something underneath at just the right time. And that, my friends, makes me love the daffodil all the more.

The Bible has something to say about how God chooses to move in our lives. 

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” Romans 5:1-11

Just like the daffodil, at just the right time, Jesus died for us. For every stinking ungodly, undeserving one of us. None of us were worth dying for. Think of the most godly person you have ever known… Wretched. Even they were wretched. But God, while we were still in that undeserving state, sent Jesus to pay the price for our salvation. At just the right time. The Bible called us enemies of God! And he still reconciled us to himself. He made our debt to him disappear.

I have planted daffodil bulbs in my yard. There is nothing pretty about a daffodil bulb. But inside that bulb, God has placed everything needed to make a beautiful daffodil. Before we meet Jesus, there is nothing in us that is beautiful. We are dead. Ephesians chapter two says it. We were dead, and we could not save ourselves. It is only through the working of God to save us are we rescued from death. Verses 8 and 9 of Ephesians 2 say… “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Those good works we do? Those things we do that make us look like we are good people? Those are only possible because of the work he did in us first. We can’t do those things apart from him. So any attempt on our part to prove ourselves worthy is then, worthless. It is only because he moved in us, at just the right time, rescued our sorry undeserving selves, that we can stand before him now justified, holy, and worthy.