“While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:22 NKJV)
It’s 6 degrees with a wind chill that makes it feel like -8 degrees in Georgia this morning. For those of you who live in the north, you will say that’s no big deal. But those of us in Georgia and Alabama know that we are totally and completely unprepared to handle any weather below 32 degrees. If there is any chance of ice, frost, snow, even a flurry, we basically ransack the grocery stores for commodities in case we’re “snowed in” and we shut everything down.
Even now my daughter, Faith is enjoying her second day home from school because there is the possibility of black ice on the roads and it’s too cold for kids to stand at the bus stop. But you know what, if she had to, Faith could stand on the bus stop for hours and not feel the cold. That’s because every year, whether we have a cold winter or not, my mother buys coats, hats, gloves, and scarves for my kids as if we live in Canada. We have a collection of 4 to 5 pairs of “only worn once” gloves with matching hats and scarves in Faith’s room.
Why am I talking about the weather? I’m glad you asked. The seasons of life will always change around us. We need to expect it and we need to be prepared. Throughout the New Year we will experience seasons of joy, grief, progress, and struggle. There are seasons of work, rest, worship, growth, great storms and unexplainable peace. We will have seasons of great spiritual awakening as well as tests of faith.
We will need to prepare ourselves with things like prayer, fasting, worship, and personal bible study. These spiritual disciplines can strengthen our spiritual resolve throughout the year and help us handle any season that comes our way.