Understand and Pray Through Your Spiritual WinterSample

Winter Trees

Winter comes without fail - it is not as if we have a choice. Few people wish for winter to come. But as sure as we are of the warmth of the sun in summer, just as sure is the coming of winter once a year.

No one wishes for or hopes for the winter seasons in their lives. Yet spiritual winters arrive with relentless regularity, and we are often bewildered by them. They can be terrifying.

Yet, winters are necessary if a tree wants to bear fruit and more fruit.

The trees we see in winter show us what trees really look like. In our spiritual winters, we see ourselves as we really are. In summer, there are leaves and fruit that conceal the actual shape of the tree. But in winter, the leaves are shed, and the tree is stripped of its outward appearance. There are no leaves or fruit to draw attention away from the true shape of the tree.

Winter has not changed the tree—it is simply that in winter, we see it as it really is.

Then, we are stripped of things that make us look good, powerful, accomplished, and spiritual. That is when we must turn to God as our Only Hope and Hiding Place.

When we take away a Christian’s fruit - which is not really his fruit (it is actually the Spirit’s Fruit), his comfortable life, all the answers to prayer (which God worked), we have, in fact, taken nothing away from the person; what remains is simply who we are.

And God is not embarrassed by it - He knew it all along. And He loves us.

Take Time To Pray

Accept the Unconditional Love of God. God’s Love is not linked to our success and performance.

We have to accept the fact that God will lay us aside from time to time for our own benefit. God doesn’t make mistakes with His loved ones.

Winter times help us to seek God for Himself and bring us to a place of deeper surrender to Him.