Chapter V

The Winter Season

In my previous book, I stated that winter was a time that did not lend itself to much activity. However, there actually are activities that people can engage in during the winter season. There are certain sports that take place in the winter; ice skating and skiing are just two examples. These activities can be done locally, like skating at a local ice skating rink or you may have to travel to mountainous areas to ski.

These activities may be fun and you can even take some coaching or training to master them. How can we relate to this spiritually? The big question is will they help us grow. In ice skating you’re on a frozen lake or rink going around in circles and with skiing, you go up a hill, just to turn around and go back down. These activities are fun and can take your mind off things for a while, but what do you do when you have to leave the rink or slope. What is accomplished? The point is we must be careful not to allow the need for recreation take our minds off the things of God which can stunt our growth and hinder our chances for survival.

In Scripture, there are examples of men of God who faced their own private winter and survived. They survived by overcoming the challenges in that season.

 The first person we will look at is Abraham. God promised Abraham a child; however, he had to wait almost twenty-five years before the birth of the child of promise. We can be encouraged because when we look at Abraham, we can see that he was not perfect and made mistakes. During this waiting period, Abram at the urging of his wife, Sarai produced a child with the wife’s handmaid, Hagar. Ishmael was born, but he was not the child of promise. When Ishmael was in his teens, Isaac, the child of promise was born to Abraham and Sarah. Sarah noticed Ishmael mocking Isaac and asked that he and the mother be sent away. Although Abraham dearly loved Ishmael he complied and sent them away. The mocking that started in childhood is reflected in the conflict today in the Middle East between the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael.  

Another person who had a severe winter was Job; we all know the story of Job, who lost everything. I mentioned him here because I want to compare him with Abraham. With Job, every area of his life was in a winter season, he lost his children, servants, livestock, herdsman, home and health.  However, with Abraham only one area was in winter and that was waiting for a child; other than waiting for the child of promise, he had his health, he had his wife and he was financially well off. Therefore, we can see that different areas of our life can experience different seasons. 

 Joseph experienced almost fourteen years of slavery and imprisonment before seeing the reality of his dream. When we look at Joseph, he really did not do anything wrong except maybe act like a spoiled child. Yet he was sold to some Midianite traders by his brothers, and then purchased by Potiphar to serve in his house. While at Potiphar’s house, he excelled in the tasks set before him. However, Potiphar’s wife accused Joseph of a crime he did not commit and he wound up in prison. While in prison, again, Joseph excelled and from there eventually he ended up in the palace. Although these were tough circumstances, Joseph did not compromise his integrity but made the best out of each situation.

Moses spent almost forty years in the desert before carrying out the call of God as the deliverer of Israel. However, God did not send him into the desert; he wound up in the desert because of a wrong action. Although Moses felt justified, his anger and impatience caused him to kill someone so he had to flee from Egypt. After nearly forty years in the desert he heard the voice of God and was able to carry out the plan of God for His people. Sadly Moses never conquered his anger issue. When the people complained of thirst, God wanted to give them water from “the rock”.  God told Moses to speak to the “rock”, but because he was angry with the people, he struck “the rock”. When the journey was almost complete, Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land because he misrepresented God before the people.  

As previously stated, there are two ways we can enter a winter season; one is because it was ordained by God and the other is because of a wrong choice we made. We will now look at two individuals who entered the winter season by wrong choices, although both managed to survive only one thrived.