Winter

A time to slow down, a time to lie fallow, a time in which growth ceases and nature rests. It is a time in which many animals go into hibernation not emerging again until the warmer days of spring come to bring new life to the world.

Winter is the season of rest.

Can you imagine life without the electric light or central heat? What would winter have been like 150 years ago? I don't want to romanticize the harshness of life in the mid-nineteenth century but certainly it was a slower time. What if we had to turn off all our electric lights when it got dark at 4:30? What would that do for us? How would that slow you down? Candlelight only from 4:30 until bed time. That would include not headlights on your car, you'd have to be home by dark.

Winter is a critical time of year for the land, it's important for it to lay fallow, for it to rest for a season. If the land is overworked, if the land is not permitted to be fallow for a season then it will become unproductive and unusable.

The apple tree blooms with flowers in spring and fruit begins to appear over the summer, in the fall the fruit is picked and the tree goes dormant, the leaves fall off as the process of photosynthesis stops for a season, winter. For several months the tree lies dormant and then the work begins again.

When is your season for being dormant? Do you need to take a break, to stop, to do nothing for a time? We all need this, it is part of God's order of things, a sabbath days rest each week.

Winter, ceasing, stopping, slowing down, hibernating, it's the way God created the world... how will you slow down this winter?

Comments

[Kelly]

Everyone in our family is off work or school the week between Christmas and New Year. We have no out of town company expected. We had the same scenario last year and it was a wonderful week of rest. We went for days only wearing our PJs. We watched movies, played games, read LOTS of books, took naps...just spent time the four of us. I am looking forward to experiencing this type of Sabbath week again this year!!

[neil]

Way to go Johnson family! That's just what you need. We're planning something similar for the week after Christmas.