Seasonable Winters

Introduction

If you are like me, when the cold winter winds start to blow, the roads ice over, and the snow piles up you only know that it is going to be a long time before you see green grass and warmer temperatures again.

As believers we know that we aren’t always going to experience bright and sunny days that are free of flurries of frost. In the Christian life winters will come where our window of hope feels frozen shut, the daylight gives quickly to darkness, and the cold winds feel like a smack in the face. Those trials are going to come. As pastor and author DA Carson once highlighted, “If you haven’t suffered, you haven’t lived long enough yet.”

Puritan author John Bunyan takes the potential cruelty of winter and frames it as a helpful metaphor for the believer who is afflicted with trials. He says,

"We also, before the temptation comes, think we can walk upon the sea, but when the winds blow, we feel ourselves begin to sink... And yet doth it yield no good unto us? We could not live without such turnings of the hand of Him upon us. We should be overgrown with flesh, if we had not our seasonable winters. It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no fruit, because there is no winter there.”

—John Bunyan

Purposeful Winters

I can only imagine that John Bunyan had Jesus' words in John 15:1-2 running through his mind as he wrote of these seasonable winters. Jesus says,

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit."

—John 15:1–2

I can't really picture or say what it would feel like to be pruned, but I do know winters well. They can be bitter, crisp, cold, and occasionally disorienting. So if pruning feels anything like a winter, I think I can feel the gravity of what Jesus is saying here.

Bunyan says that we would “be overgrown with flesh” if it were not for seasonable winters. We would be so stagnant in our progress in the Christian life if it were not for trials that come and prune our branches. These seasonable trials and afflictions aren’t meant to cut us off permanently or to lead us into doubt or despair. Rather, the purpose of these winters are so that we would actually bear more fruit.

The only way we can grow and bear fruit in a healthy God-glorifying way is through submitting ourselves to the providential plan of our Father. And often, as Bunyan suggests above, this comes through needing to endure winter.

God will cut, and trim, and prune our lives so that we wouldn’t become overgrown.

Have you ever seen a backyard garden that is so overgrown with dead and dying branches that the beauty, vibrancy, and health has disappeared? So it goes with our lives. God comes in and prunes us so that what is healthy might remain. He will remove any dependency we have on anything else in life whether it be health, finances, stability, or prosperity so that we might only abide in the vine.

God’s providence is always purposeful. It will shatter our pride, anchor our hope, bolster our courage, battle our complacency, and comfort our fears (among many other things). The seasonable winters of God’s providence are intended to bring everything else out of focus except for the LORD who governs the seasons of our lives.

Timely Winters

As a fruit bearing branch, one that abides in Christ (Jn. 15:5-6), it should be no surprise to us that the pruning is going to continue to come throughout life. We aren't told when this pruning comes, but we can be sure that it does come when it is needed. Maybe these seasonable winters also come when they are needed. Could it be that in the Lord's great kindness He gives us seasons of life that bite like a crisp South Dakota winter wind? Jesus says that this vineyard tending the Father orchestrates is so that the He, Himself, would be glorified (Jn. 15:8a).

While we might not always be able to see these seasonable winters coming, or even be able to identify one while we are in one. More often than not we can look back at that past season and see how formative that time really was. Another Puritan, John Flavel wisely notes, “Some providences, like Hebrew letters, must be read backwards.”

How have you been able to read God’s providential ordering of your life backwards? Do you see how his presence sustained you? Are you aware of ways his fatherly discipline corrected your waywardness and foolishness? Can you perceive that maybe God was providentially holding something from you so that you would receive greater joy at a later time?

God’s hard providences are for our good. As John Bunyan says, “doth it yield no good unto us? We could not live without such turnings of the hand of Him upon us.” These turnings of His hand may come as an unseen difficulty to us in the present but we can be sure that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). In all timings, God is working for our good. Even when a seasonable winter descends upon us, know that it is coming upon you from the hand of a loving Father who knows what is best for your spiritual growth.

Embracing the Winter

Maybe you are going through a seasonable winter right now. Sometimes it takes a bitter and frosty wind to hit our skin before we realize it. It’s my prayer that as a church we would take advantage of these inevitable and necessary seasons of life. As Bunyan described above, he has heard of places where trees will grow but not bear any fruit since they haven’t experienced any winters. By God’s grace may we as a church not be a fruitless orchard. God prepares us for and in these seasonable winters and seasonable times of pruning so that over time the joy of Christ would be in us and that it would be full in us (Jn. 15:11) all for the sake of the Father's glory.