Winter in the Soul

"Thou hast made summer and winter." - Psalm 74:17

My soul, begin this wintry month with your God. The cold snows and the piercing winds all remind you that He keeps His covenant with day and night, and they tend to assure you that He will also keep that glorious covenant which He has made with you in the person of Christ Jesus. He who is true to His Word in the revolutions of the seasons of this poor world will not prove unfaithful in His dealings with His own well-beloved Son.

Winter in the soul is by no means a comfortable season; if it is upon you just now, it will be very painful to you. But there is this comfort, namely, that the Lord Himself makes it. He sends the sharp blasts of adversity to nip the buds of expectation; He scatters the hoarfrost like ashes over the meadows of our joy; He casts forth His ice like morsels, freezing the streams of our delight. He does it all; He is the great winter King, and rules in the realms of frost.

Losses, crosses, heaviness, sickness, poverty, and a thousand other ills are of the Lord's sending, and come to us with wise design. Frosts kill insects and put a boundary on raging diseases; they break up the clods and sweeten the soil. Oh, that such good results would always follow our winters of affliction.

How we prize the fire just now! How pleasant is its cheerful glow! Let us in the same manner prize our Lord, who is the constant source of warmth and comfort in every time of trouble. Let us draw near to Him and in Him find joy and peace in believing. Let us wrap ourselves in the warm garments of His promises and go forth to labors which fit the season, for it wrong to be as the sluggard who will not plough by reason of the cold, for he shall beg in summer and have nothing.

- C. H. Spurgeon