Evangelical Covenant Church, Crookston ~ Monthly Article

It’s Cold Outside

Every place I go around town, I have been encountering people who comment about how cold it has been recently. Even as I write this, the forecast for our area is calling for still more cold weather. Below zero temperatures are the norm right now and we just have to live with it. But to all of you, who are feeling the chill of a Minnesota winter, I just have two things to say. It is Minnesota. It is late January. It is supposed to be cold.

We become spoiled by unseasonable warm weather. We start to expect that it should stay that way, but having grown up in northern Illinois, I know that I have to be ready for cold weather to hit and, at times, hit hard. I just get the extra sweater out or the scarf to wrap around my neck under my jacket and go out to brave the elements, all the while enjoying the crispness of the cold air and the clarity of the humidity-free skies.

Okay, so I’m a little bit goofy when it comes to winter weather, but I truly enjoy it. I have always loved to skate, sled and ski. I enjoy a warm fire on our fireplace on a cold night. I enjoy looking at the brilliant stars that fill a winter’s night sky. I also enjoy the colorful foliage and cool days of autumn. I enjoy the outdoor activities of a good, hot summer day. I enjoy the awakening greenness of spring. I like the out of doors and it doesn’t matter what season it is.

We have to consider that the seasons we encounter and enjoy as being a portion of God’s grace to us. He, as Creator, set the seasons in motion and, over the centuries, has allowed them to come and go with amazing regularity. We all see the seasons; though they may be slightly different from what is experienced in Minnesota if you live in Arizona or Maine. Still the seasons are something we all face and, hopefully, enjoy to some degree.

The seasons of nature are not the only seasons we all encounter, or are they the only seasons that are an indication of God’s grace. Our lives go through various seasons and this is also evidence that what God set into motion in creation continues to proceed as he planned. Each of us goes through the various seasons of life and, like some natural seasons, these seasons of life last for varying amounts of time for different people. Some people never seem to leave their childhood, always acting very childish when things don’t go their way. Some people have a second childhood that can be signified by a childlike wonder at each new experience they come across. Many of us discover a certain stage of life we wish we could stay in forever, but, unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way. We have to move on.

Moving on brings to us the challenge of change, some of which can be very difficult to handle. Some people don’t like various stages of life because they bring varying degrees of difficulties to life. Teenagers today have to deal with so much more than my generation had to and I thought I was faced with hard choices to make back then, but it didn’t keep me from wanting to grow older. Many teens wish to be older only to find when they got older, they wish they could be teenagers again. A lot of middle-aged adults fear growing older because it brings the increasing chance of illness or frailty. Other relish the idea of growing older since it means an increasing sense of freedom to do those things that youth did not offer or the desire and maturity to face and accomplish them. We all have the ability to enjoy the season of life we find ourselves in if we will only let God help us cope with the changing seasons that are all a part of life.

God designed this life we share and enjoy and he wants to remain a part of it with us. We have to be willing to allow him to continue to have an influence over the changes we face and to help us in the way we handle them. He created us for this wonderful relationship with him and it is up to us to keep that relationship vital and growing through faithful obedience and trust that we will never encounter something that is beyond our ability to endure. With God’s help, we can weather the cold or the heat, the age or the youth of the various seasons of life and we will find that, with God, it is enjoyable as well.