Winter

​This week I got to spend to some time with friends decorating for Christmas. Between unraveling lights and deciding where everything should go it was crazy, but in those moments God reminded me of winter.  Not winter as in the season we are currently in, but winter as a verb, hunkering down for the cold season like our ancestors, and how that relates to relationships and community. These friends and I have endured some the hardest and most intense spiritual winters of our lives together.  Through that winter we chose to endure, press through, and be faithful.  I’m telling you it was so hard, because in some of those really low moments it would have been so much easier to just throw the towel in and quit, but by wintering together it really strengthened our relationships.  

Psalm 74:17 (New International Version) reads, “It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; you made both summer and winter.” We can look at this verse two ways, but today I want to focus on the spiritual side of seasons.  In life and in relationships we will go through seasons.  You must understand that not all seasons are easy, life will put you through harsh times, but it is those hard times that will build deep lasting relationships.  I love how John Bevere puts it— it is through some the harshest winter that trees bear the best fruit in spring, because the cold forces the roots to dig deeper.  

So this week I want to challenge you:  Are you enduring a spiritual winter in your life? Are you ready to throw the towel in and quit?  DON’T!  Endure, stand, and fight for your spring.  Know that this season is temporary and God’s promises and the blessings that will come afterwards will be worth it.  

1 Peter 1:3-7 (New International Version) - Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

We might not understand why we are going through this trial or this winter, but know that Jesus is so faithful, it will eventually end, and that out of this season will come richness.  Don’t get discouraged in this season. Fight for blessing, fight for growth, fight for relationships, fight for what God has placed on your heart.  It will be worth it!

So as we were decorating and I was reminded of the past season we had endured together, I saw the spring of our relationships.  We could go super deep in our conversations and be vulnerable with one another, and we all knew we were safe.  Our relationship had deepened so much, and that was only because we had endured a winter together.  

​​​Dani Noe, Sozo & Admin Pastor