It’s been a while since I wrote a devotional focused primarily on a personal word or encounter with God. There’s a reason for this—I’ve been walking through some emotionally tough months when I could barely distinguish a whisper from the Holy Spirit, a time when I felt all alone, bereft of God’s comfort and guidance.

 

Oh, yes, I know God has been with me throughout this lonely time. I was not abandoned. His love for me was just as steady and passionate as it has always been. I had the promises of His Word, and I should have been able to rise above my feelings and fears to grab hold of them. But I was in the grip of winter.

I like to read about the kind of high priest we have in Jesus—One who has gone through the heavens, yet is able “to sympathize with our weaknesses” because He has been tempted in every way we have been (Hebrews 4:15). He knows our human frame and understands that we are deeply affected by our emotions and thoughts—even the inaccurate ones.

While I was in this “spiritual winter” filled with dreariness and discouragement, I instinctively knew I couldn’t bounce out of it by simply wishing to do so. I had no choice but to continue to hope in God and live in the light of what He had already taught me, trusting that one day the clouds would part and the sun would shine on me in all its brilliance once again.

Most of us have experienced times when all seems dead around us and even our hearts seem to stop beating with the pulse of the Spirit. We go through the motions—continuing to attend church, read our Bibles, and minister as we have the opportunity—but it isn’t the same.

Perhaps we feel it most in our prayer life … the inability to really commune with our heavenly Father as we once did. Because we sense some kind of estrangement, it’s hard to find that natural rhythm of praise and petition we once enjoyed in prayer. Instead, our prayers seem to be mostly groaning and sighing.

The last four or five years of my life have felt like an extended season of mourning. I’ve mourned the changes I perceived as losses, both in myself and in those I love. I’ve mourned my inability to change or escape difficult circumstances. And I’ve mourned the season of mourning I found myself in! I just couldn’t seem to shed my cloak of sadness. I’d take it off for a short while and before I knew it I was wearing it again.

I’m happy to write that my spiritual wintertime is finally starting to break up. I can sense hope again, and I’m approaching His throne of grace with some joy in my heart. I’m starting to receive fresh revelation from the Holy Spirit as I read God’s Word. Feeling warm and safe again, I find myself venturing out more, looking for opportunities to intersect with other Christians and to share my life in Christ with non-believers.

While I’m obviously pleased and relieved to see winter retreating, I also know it’s been used of God to develop my faith in Him. My spiritual winter wasn’t random or senseless. It wasn’t sent as a result of sin in my life. Rather, it was part of my Father’s good plan for me and was designed (according to His Word) to “prosper you and not to harm you … to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

Recently I read a new book by one of my favorite authors—Mark Buchanan. Called Spiritual Rhythm, it looks at the four seasons as representative of the conditions of our hearts at different times. One of its themes is that each season has its own challenges to be faced and its own lessons to be learned. Winter is just as vital to our spiritual health as summer is, though admittedly not nearly as enjoyable.

In winter we have to hunker down and do less. It’s a time for pruning and getting rid of deadwood. It’s a time of patiently waiting on better things to come, and a time of planning what we’ll do when we see the arrival of spring and our energies are renewed. In the spiritual realm, it’s a time when we are enclosed with God. We must trust Him to do what we are unable to do ourselves—deliver us out of our uncomfortable circumstances.

The circumstances of our winters will look different for each of us. Whatever they are, they are rich in spiritual lessons if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. As Mark Buchanan writes, [In winter] “we see our lives in their truest light: see them for what they truly are, and know what really matters, and what doesn’t.”

Often God uses the time we’re shut in with Him to address things we would otherwise ignore. With fewer distractions to divert our attention, they become glaringly visible as the Holy Spirit searches our hearts. His desire is to root out the fears and misconceptions that keep us from fully trusting our Father.

When things are fine and good, when all seems to be rolling along with few challenges or setbacks, it’s easy to believe God and His promises. Secretly, we may even congratulate ourselves on how well we are managing our lives. But when crises come and they are more than we can handle in our own strength, we quickly learn that our faith in Him is rather shallow.

I don’t know about you, but when things get really tough, my tendency is to look for a way out. Some things, like relationships and jobs, lend themselves to bailing, but other things, like illness or accidents, aren’t so easy to walk away from. They trap us and then challenge us: How are we going to respond to this unhappy and unchangeable circumstance?

If we can persevere—continue to trust God—even in tough times, our faith will grow deeper and stronger. When we give up too soon, getting out when the getting is good, we may think we’ve avoided a catastrophe, but (to quote Mark Buchanan again) “maybe all we’ve avoided is the kingdom.”

During his exceptionally difficult wintertime, Job knew despair and loneliness at a depth we can’t even imagine. From a place of prosperity and blessing he was plunged into a nightmare of confusion, pain, and loss. He felt abandoned by God and he had no idea why.

“If I go to the east, [God] is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold” (Job 23:8-10).

As we see in verse 10, Job’s feelings of abandonment did not prevent him from acknowledging God’s faithful care over his life. Job was confident that one day he would be delivered from his test and that his soul would be made better through the process. If we finish the story, we know that Job’s faith was richly rewarded. “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first” (42:12).

He was blessed materially, but far more importantly, he came out of his winter knowing the One he had ignorantly served for years. Beyond the platitudes he and his friends had once believed about God, he now knew who He truly was. “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (42:5).

It’s unlikely that we’ll ever welcome spiritual winter. After all, it’s cold and uncomfortable and oh so lonely and bleak. But in time we may accept its arrival without grumbling, knowing it holds rich and unexpected blessings if we respond to it with faith.

Some day our “faith lessons” will come to an end. We’ll hear our Bridegroom’s voice calling to us: “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come” (Song of Solomon 2:10-12). How glorious it will be to leave all our winters behind and bask in His presence forever!

But for now, we can rejoice in the fact that He is with us and for us and in us … and He’ll never let go of us, no matter what season of the heart we may be going through. I’ll close with this quote from Streams in the Desert (Feb. 8): “Never look ahead to the changes and challenges of this life in fear. Instead, as they arise look at them with the full assurance that God, whose you are, will deliver you out of them. Hasn’t He kept you safe up to now? So hold His loving hand tightly, and He will lead you safely through all things. And when you cannot stand, He will carry you in His arms.”
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“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Your perfect love is casting out fear;