It is about this time during winter when we long for it to be over. We generally have had enough dreary cool days. Our soul and spirit long for better weather and feelings of new birth. We have experienced enough of winter to last us for a while.

I love the variation of the seasons. When you live somewhere that you don’t get to experience the fullness of the seasons. I believe you miss the flow of nature, something God created to demonstrate his wisdom and love.

Now some will say oh I wouldn’t miss winter. It is just too cold and damp for me. But science reveals that the earth needs the rest. The soil and plants recuperate during this time. They literally are being prepared to handle another trip around the sun.

When spring comes our outlook grows like the seeds that have been in the ground and spring forth as the sun and the warmth increase. Like the Easter lilies that spring up the earliest of flowers, we spring up in our hopes for the new season. The birds sing of the glory of God in spring and the new birth happening in every corner of nature as do we sing about the joy springing from inside of us. As new hopes are planted in us, we begin to sow seeds in gardens, flower beds, and yards in anticipation of a plentiful harvest.

In Ecclesiastes 3 we read There is a timefor everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. It goes onto list the various times in our life and then concludes with this: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yetno one can fathomwhat God has done from beginning to end”. Most of the times there is a calling in our heart looking for the eternal of life. Eternity by its very nature is unseen. Because everything that we can see is going to perish.

In Psalm 1 we read: “That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.” Like the world around us we produce fruit in season. Our seasons have a flow about them.

But here we are still in winter. Like the ground rests from all its work and suffering, so should we. I like to think of winter as a time of reflection. Time to look and examine the path and direction of our lives. Maybe we need to also look at the areas we are sowing in our life. Are we placing to much of ourselves in certain areas? Do I need to rethink where I am planting? Is it time to rotate the crops in my life, like my study habits, my prayer time, and the priorities of my life?

In Jeremiah we read: “Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord.”

Winter gives us time to look and reflect. Just like the Jews that practiced a weekly Sabbath rest and God instituted a Sabbath year also. God put reflection in the system so we would examine what is important.

So, as we look at our lives let us reflect and then imagine what should happen in our lives. Because you know what is about to happen, Spring is coming.

Mark Mitchell