Ready for a Long Winter?
I haven’t consulted the Farmer’s Almanac or the old-timers getting coffee in Luverne, and I’m not a long-term meteorologist, but I’m predicting a long, hard winter.
Let me back up and explain how I arrived at that thought. Over the last couple of years my kids have enjoyed reading the Laura Ingalls-Wilder book series, as no doubt many of you reading this have as well in the past, and we recently had a chance to drive over to De Smet, SD, to take a tour of the 160 acres where the old Ingalls family homestead was located. If you’ve never gone there, take some kids or grandkids and you’ll have a wonderful day!
My favorite book in the series is “The Long Winter,” the majority of which took place in what was at that time the tiny new town of De Smet. I believe this is Laura’s masterpiece. What an incredible tale of survival, resourcefulness, and faith in God. The constant battering of blizzards, the lack of food, and even disunity in the community all threatened the existence of the people there that winter. What you may not remember is the fact that the previous winter the Ingalls family were the only ones in town (there was no town!), yet they were blessed to live in a cozy house with a huge supply of free food, and they enjoyed great weather that year. What a difference one year can make.
If we remain on our current trajectory in this nation, our days of enjoying easy weather will soon be past. A long winter is coming…a long spiritual winter, that is. Something like a famine:
Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”—“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.” Amos 8:4-5a,11
Many Christian leaders might make a similar comment about where we are heading and cite loose morals, dwindling church attendance, and our growing lack of a “biblical worldview.” All of these are concerning, no doubt, but don’t miss what brought on the famine (or winter) in the Amos passage: Neglecting the needy and stealing time from God to make more money.
And yet in this long winter or famine likely to come soon, we will be presented with incredible opportunities to shine the light of the gospel of Christ in ways we have not yet experienced! This article is not intended to encourage defeatism or withdrawal from the world. Just the opposite… the truth is that if our light grows brighter and hotter in the years to come, as the world we know grows darker, we will attract (and go out to rescue) more hurting people than ever before for Christ’s glory. So bring on the long, hard winter!
Cory Grimm