It’s Spring! Now is the Time for the Earth to Prepare for Winter
Follow the Process of Nature to Start Preparing Now for Your Spiritual Winter
This week I have thoroughly enjoyed the changing season. Yes, Spring is upon us. Daffodils have broken through the ground and will be blooming soon. The sun has been shining and each day has gotten warmer than the day before. As they say, “Spring has sprung.”
According to Emily Dickinson, “Spring is the Period Express from God,” quoted from her poem, Spring is the Period.
Edwin Way Teale expressed the optimism of Spring in his book North with the Spring. “The world’s favorite season is the spring. All things seem possible in May.”
Despite Ms. Dickinson’s and Mr. Teale’s opinions, my personal favorite season is Fall. Some time ago as I was engulfed by the beauty of the Fall foliage, I began looking toward Winter and asking God why the Fall was so beautiful when it was merely the precursor to the dormancy of Winter. God began speaking to me about rest; the beauty of entering a place of rest. He analogized the natural process of the changing of the leaves with the spiritual process of finding our rest in Him. Both require preparation in the Spring and Summer.
Natural Process
According to Science Made Simple (www.sciencemadesimple.com/leaves/html, accessed Mar. 14, 2022), Autumn, also referred to as Fall, is the transition between Summer and Winter. Leaves actually begin preparing for Autumn as soon as they start growing in the Spring.
In Spring the earth begins to warm as the daylight rapidly increases. This causes new plant growth. Generally, there is a lot of moisture as snow melts and rains begin. Unstable weather likely occurs. Spring is a time of growth, renewal, and new life.
During the Summer, plants are making and storing food and are growing. This is facilitated by the long hours of sunlight and the good supply of water. Trees take water from the ground through their roots. The leaves take in the carbon dioxide from the air. Using sunlight, they turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose (a kind of sugar) through the process of “photosynthesis,” which means “putting together with light.” A chemical called Chlorophyll is what gives leaves their green color. However, the beautiful golds, oranges, and reds are also in the leaves, they just cannot be seen due to the amount of Chlorophyll in the leaves. Plants use the glucose as food for energy and as a building block for growing. During Summer days, leaves make more glucose than the tree needs for energy and growth. The excess is turned into starch and stored until needed.
Before looking at Autumn, consider what trees do in the Winter, when there is not enough light or water for photosynthesis. It is during the Winter that trees rest; they live off the food they stored during the summer.
Now consider Autumn. As the daylight gets shorter in the Autumn, plants begin to shut down their food production. At the base of each leaf is a special layer of cells called the “abscission” or separation layer. In the fall, the cells of the abscission layer swell and form a cork-like material, reducing and finally cutting off flow between the leaf and the tree. Glucose and waste products are trapped in the leaf. Without fresh water to renew it, chlorophyll begins to disappear, causing the green color to fade and allowing the golds, oranges, and reds to be seen.
The bright reds and purples in leaves result from glucose that is trapped in the leaves after photosynthesis stops. The brown colors, including golds and oranges, result from the waste products left in the leaves. It is the combination of all these things that make the beautiful Fall foliage colors we enjoy each year.
After reviewing this science, I began to understand what God was showing me about our spiritual seasons.
Spiritual Process
First, let’s consider the spiritual Summer of our lives. It is during the Summer that we are to be eating and growing. But what do we eat? We can eat healthy or we can eat junk food. Just like the trees, we can store up energy (glucose) or waste.
How do we store up energy to produce beautiful red and purple leaves during our spiritual Fall? By devouring God’s Word. His Word is as honey, which is sweet to our taste (Ps. 119:103). Eating God’s Word produces wisdom in our souls (Pr. 24:13-14). With wisdom, we leave our simple ways and walk in the ways of understanding (Pr. 9:1-6).
During the spiritual Winter, we rest in God. God knows we need rest. One reason He gave us the Sabbath is for rest (Ex. 20:8-11).
Jesus encouraged His disciples to rest in Mark 6:30-32. He urged them to go with Him to a quiet place to get rest. In Matthew 11:28-29, as He was speaking to the multitudes, He encouraged them to come to Him to find rest.
King David acknowledged God as his only source of rest (Ps. 62:1).
Jesus intends for us to have spiritual Winters, those times when we must rest in Him. So, how do we make it through the spiritual Winters, when there is no growth, no energy production? We ensure that during our spiritual Summers, we are eating the good food, that which produces glucose, not waste. And we eat enough to store the excess. We cannot eat only enough to meet our current needs. We cannot merely do the minimum. If we do, we will not have enough good food to sustain us through the Winter.
Even before David became king, he urged the people of God to “taste and see that the Lord is good” and to fear Him and take refuge in Him so they would lack “no good thing.” (Ps. 34:8-10).
What is it to fear the Lord? I heard one young minister describe it as being obsessed with God. Consider Proverbs 2:1-5.
My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.
Proverbs 2:1-5 NIV.
Does this not sound like obsession? Is this not illustrating the storing up of God’s word and commands?
Read on to Proverbs 2:6-11 to see the result of devouring God’s Word. These verses illustrate what our spiritual Autumns will look like.
For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. Then you will understand what is right and just and fair—every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.
Proverbs 2:6-11 NIV.
This is the spiritual Autumn. When we have stored up God’s Word throughout our spiritual summers, we will gain understanding of the fear of the Lord and knowledge of God. Then wisdom and knowledge will be stored in our hearts and souls throughout the Autumn. And we will be sustained through the spiritual Winters by knowledge and understanding, victory through Jesus as our shield and our guard, and discretion that protects us.
During the spiritual Summers of your life, eat up God’s Word by reading it, meditating on it, and praying it. Then just as the Fall foliage is beautiful to us, you will become beautiful to God during your spiritual Autumns.
Preparing for Rest
God finds us beautiful when we are preparing to enter His rest, not just when we are in the midst of growth. We will have spiritual Winters. I have often heard people in spiritual Winters express they feel as if they are lacking something or failing God because there is not the intense hunger that they are used to.
I have found myself in spiritual Winters, which is why the opportunity to engulf myself in the beauty of the natural Fall caused me to seek God and ask why the earth is so beautiful as it is heading into dormancy. He has assured me that we all need times of rest. And, as we prepare for that rest in Him, He finds us just as beautiful as when we are aggressively pursuing Him. If during our Summers we have treasured Him, stored up His Word within us, cried out for understanding and sought Him as a hidden treasure, then in Autumn we will gain the wisdom, knowledge and understanding we need to sustain us through the Winter.
We find a picture of winter in Psalm 63:1, “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.” In the winter we wonder where God is and do not find that which quenches our thirst.
Psalm 63:2-3 illustrates what sustains us, “To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.”
We are sustained in the Winter by what we experienced in the Summer, where we devoured God’s word and spent much time in prayer, being nourished and growing. Then we will make it through the Winter with praise.
If we want true rest in the Winter, being well nourished during the time of rest, during the Summer take in more than just the minimum of God’s Word, Spirit and guidance in order to have excess through the Winters. We must not treat our times of prayer and devotion as tasks to check off our to-do lists. But develop a true hunger for His Word and make time to devour it and thoroughly study it as He directs.
During the Winter, continue to seek God by faith, standing on the Word you feasted upon in the Summer. Remember that it is God who works in you to energize you and create in you the power and desire to do His will (Philippians 2:13). When you are fully rested, and your faith has been strengthened, you will find growth, renewal, and new life as He calls you and feeds you again in the Spring.
Just as the trees begin in the Spring to prepare for the Winter, remember in your spiritual Spring and Summer to prepare for your spiritual Winter. Then you can ward off discouragement during your spiritual Winter. You will be able to wait on the Lord and be of good courage while God strengthens your heart (Psalm 27:14).
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2 Comments
Debra Celovsky
So good to remember, Julie, as we move from season to season.
Julie McGhghy
I find myself enjoying the seasons so much more after spending 2 years in Costa Rica where there in only the wet and dry seasons. I even enjoyed the cold, snow and dark days of winter when I returned to the U.S. Oh, to prepare for all seasons as nature does will help us appreciate and enjoy all spiritual seasons in our lives.