It’s that time of year again. Two days of 70 degree weather has everyone in my neighborhood firing up the mowers, backpack blowers and turning the earth in the anticipation of the seeds prospering. From the dormancy of winter, we are busy preparing for spring’s grand arrival.

There’s a good chance, however, that those seeds won’t prosper…if I’m being honest. Even under perfect, laboratory conditions Sunflower seeds germinate about 85% of the time, and even then not all seedlings turn into full-grown plants. On top of that, let’s face it, not many of us garden in “perfect, laboratory conditions,” so there’s probably at least a 50% chance that the Sunflower won’t grow…if I’m being honest.

In fact, there’s about the same chance that something is going to go wrong today. Turn on the news, scroll through your Facebook feed or listen to your friends. We hear it all of the time–the bad and the ugly, and if that’s not bad enough, we have our own pessimism engine built into our brains. When you think about it, we should stop cutting the grass, stop planting seeds, stop dreaming, stop moving, stop. Stop. Stop!

Yet we don’t…stop, that is. We continue to do all of these things because there is one small counterbalance to the resistance, and it’s called hope. Nope, “hope is not a strategy,” and we must “burn the bridge of hope.” In understand, but the truth is, hope is the reason that we get out bed in the morning, the reason that we plant seeds, the reason that we start businesses and try new things. When it comes down to it, we just don’t know what’s on the other side of that sunrise.

“If you can look into the seeds of  time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.” (Macbeth act 1, sc. 3)

I don’t know which seeds that will prosper and which seeds that will fail, so I throw them all onto the fertile soil and move forward. In much the same way, I cannot waste my days counting whether the next will be more troublesome than the one that I do have–today. The resistance is strong, and it’s already stolen too much from me. 2012, in fact, was one of the most “hopeless” years that I’ve ever had.

I wrote this post in January as my New Year’s blessing, but I ultimately went a slightly different direction. These words have been my anthem of 2013, and now as the earth is made new this spring, may you too find comfort in this spring blessing:

Surefooted, step one foot after another on the path that is before you,
Courageously and perhaps recklessly believe,
Move through this world with boldness,
Rest in the truth that the sovereign Lord will bless your steps, even the missteps
Don’t look back. Don’t carry a heavy head. Forge new trails.
The journey awaits, and it may not look anything like you anticipate, but it will be perfect.