I don’t know of many of us who are eagerly praying for another snow this year. The confinement that the snow and cold has forced upon us this winter has created a longing for the warm climes of summer. Yet, let us sit for a while longer in winter, for there are a couple of lessons to learn that I think will be beneficial to us.

 

   I adore the beauty of freshly fallen snow. Its pure and spotless surface covers over the barren dankness of winter turning everything into a glistening wonderland. If the snow is deep enough, it is almost impossible to deter-mine the sloping contours of the yard thereby leveling out the entire landscape. Sadly, this beauty is destroyed by the first footprint as often the desire to go and play around in the snow wins out over the urge to maintain the snow’s purity. I cannot think of anything that is more bleak than dirty snow. Snow is not supposed to be dirty, it’s too pure for that, my heart screams. It occurs to me that dirty snow though is a great description of our souls. God’s forgiveness leaves our souls as pristine as newly fallen snow. We choose to mar it by going out and playing around in sin. I can hear you say, “but playing in snow is so much fun!!” Yes, I know, and I know of many who say that playing around in sin is just as much fun. Yet, just as we are told to stay off the roads for our own safety after the snow, so too does God’s Word instruct us to do the same with sin in our own lives. The question is why are we willing to listen to fallible authorities and ignore the infallible Creator of all?

 

   Secondly, the saddest thing I see in the days after a snow are snowmen. The temperatures rise to much warmer ranges and here are these frozen reminders that seem completely out of context to the world around them. It seems to me that we often find ourselves in the same predicament. We become frozen in our thoughts and actions and fall out of step with where God would have us be at the present. The snowman was great for that day, but its joy and beauty creates an air of sadness on those later days that bear little resemblance to those now past. We can long for them to come back and protect us, but sadly the chances of that happening are slim. The snowman at this stage is but an ever-decreasing picture of its former glory. Beloved, let us never become snowmen of faith, but let us always set ourselves to the task to grow in the grace and witness of our God. Let us not be where God has us to be yesterday, but where He wants us today as we seek out where He would have us be tomorrow.

 

   Blessings,

   Marc