Outside my front window is a rose bush, a Peace Rose. Back in the summer last year it produced one, then several beautiful roses. Then I cut the faded ones back, and new branches came out and budded. The buds felt cool, and I wondered if they would fully blossom before frost came. But they did and gradually unfolded into large, full-bodied roses of beautiful colors.

That is the way the signs of the times are unfolding into a beautiful fulfillment of our “Looking for that Blessed Hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13) that believers have been so long anticipating.