“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…”
We’re designed to be Christians that survive all seasons in life and Godliness. Like many things God has designed in nature to reflect spiritual things, the seasons of the year reflect the various life stages and seasons every Christian is guaranteed to go through. Let’s examine the cold, dreary old man winter…
Winter
I grew up in the tropics where our version of winter bottomed out at around fifty degrees Fahrenheit. We knew the weather by looking out the window. When it was sunny, it was warm and when it was cloudy it was cold. I learned the truth about winter when I moved to the United States. The bone chilling cold weather is a constant whether sunny or cloudy.
When it’s freezing cold we have a tendency to seek warmer places. A lot of times when our walk with God hits moments and times when the ‘winter’ bites hard (we’ve been pruned and nothing seems to be growing), we tend to respond by hibernating. Many things die in the winter, disappear, and seem to have been lost. The ground is hard, dry, and stone cold. Our spiritual lives can seem stagnant and dead in many places yet when the right work is done in the winter, it produces an abundance of fruit later on.
How we face and endure the winters of our spiritual lives determines how we thrive in the good seasons. I’ve grown to cherish the harshness of the winter because they become a constant reminder that spring is around the corner. It is the season when God works even when we don’t see it.
Winter follows fall, the harvest season. It is in this season when the effects of pruning are felt. Our branches, that just a few short weeks before, bore an abundance of fruit are now bare, not even a leaf in sight. It is in the hidden, cold, dry, and bare times when God preserves resources and prepares us for the next season.
A Christian of all seasons understands each season well but particularly this one. They know the benefits of a good winter season when the effects of pruning are real. They also understand the hardship that comes along with it will not last forever and they learn how to take advantage of it all. In the winter is also when we can ski, ice skate, build snow men, have snowball fights, and some even go ice fishing over frozen lakes. A positive spin on a tough situation.
In every season, a Christian of all seasons knows what’s going on, what to look for, and how to respond. May we become 4 season Christians.
Tune in next week for a look at Spring, when what seemed dead suddenly comes to life!
Nelson Masinde 