All You Touch Comes Alive

Here in the Midwest, we have been enduring a week of bitterly cold temperatures, snow, and wind. The landscape looks like a frozen, lifeless tomb. It is difficult to believe any vegetation can arise again from this winter wasteland.

In the midst of these harsh conditions, it is reassuring to hear Psalm 65 address God with these words: “All you touch comes alive.” Genesis tells us that the Spirit breathed over the waters of chaos when the earth was created, and that upon creating humans, God blew the breath of life into their nostrils. In the gospel of Mark we hear many stories of ill and broken people who experienced new life at the touch of Jesus; furthermore, after he himself died and rose to new life, Jesus breathed on his disciples.

We have been touched by God. How is it possible that God has not touched us, when it is in God that we live and move and have our being? Even in bleak times, God’s life is stirring within us, as surely as well-fluffed birds eagerly eat at our feeders on frigid winter days.

Our times of dormancy and seeming death have a purpose that we are not always able to fathom. My dad, who grew up on a farm, told me that the soil seems to need to undergo a process of freezing and upheaval to be fertile in the spring. We learn from the earth to trust that life will spring forth with the touch of the sun. Just so, the touch of God will always stir us to new life.