Praying in the Snow
Last year my wife decided that she and I should take up a new winter activity together: cross-country skiing. I was dubious at first, not because of the cold temperatures of winter but because skiing of any kind is quite outside my comfort zone. My experience of downhill skiing ended back in Grade 6 after some semi-traumatic experiences on the local ski hill and I have steadfastly avoided skiing every since.
Some people really enjoy winter activities and the season of winter more broadly. Who can really deny the beauty of seeing large flakes of snow fall and settle on the ground, creating a fresh blanket over the ground, or the wonder of waking up to the scenery of fresh hoar frost on the trees? The reality for many is that the season of winter is a particularly challenging season that can awaken feelings of dread and depression. Here in Canada, the days get a lot darker and with that comes the colder temperatures that lead to more of a hibernating existence over the winter months.
Recently I’ve been reading a book called Spiritual Rhythm by Mark Buchanan, where his looks at the four seasons of nature through a spiritual lens and how we experience different spiritual seasons in our spiritual journey. The season that really caught my attention was the season of winter; one of the main reasons is that having just come through the COVID pandemic experience, life has in many ways felt like an extended season of winter. The theme of this post is ‘abiding in Christ’, which is a phrase that largely comes out of John 15 and Jesus’ teaching that we must ‘abide’ or ‘remain’ in Him in order to flourish and grow and for our lives to produce the kind of spiritual fruit that God desires for us (Jn. 15:8). What I want to write about here is about what the spiritual season of winter teaches us about prayer and particularly how prayer is one of the primary ways in which we ‘abide Christ’. I will, of course, be drawing from the chapters in Spiritual Rhythm and Mark Buchanan’s main observations.
Looking at Psalm 88, Buchanan points out that in spiritual seasons of winter, God feels absent or distant. We might believe that God is with us, but the experience of His Presence is largely removed. Another aspect of winter is that a sense of being isolated and alone, either in relation to God or in relation to other people. Winter can be a cold season that “seems all-consuming and never-ending”(SR. p. 34).
What does a person do in a season of winter? Buchanan points out that prayer is one of the primary activities, but praying in the midst of the a spiritual winter season can be challenging. Reflecting on Psalm 88, he writes:
“In this (psalmist’s) wintertime he prays, though his capacity to believe is strained almost to extinction. He prays anyhow, and in this way: according to what he knows of God, not what he sees of God. Or put it this way: his praying is anchored in God’s revelation of himself in Scripture, not in his first-hand experience of God in daily life. He prays not because God’s been good to him but because God’s Word says God is good and he’s betting the whole farm on it being so. That’s biblical faith (and) winter grows pure faith.” (SR. p. 46)
There is another primary activity in winter that Buchanan touches on: pruning. In John 15 when Jesus teaches about abiding in Him, He talks specifically about pruning. It is an activity of God in our lives designed to make our lives even more fruitful in the long term. He said that “every branch that does bear fruit (God) prunes so that it will be even more fruitful” (Jn. 15:2). God is at work in our lives in every season, however pruning is something that happens in winter and this is strategic because it enables a tree or a vine to become ever more fruitful when spring and summer come. When we are experiencing a season of winter and sense that God may be doing some ‘pruning’ in our lives, our response needs to be prayer. The best way for us to ‘remain’ in Jesus during these dark and difficult seasons in through prayer.
Here are a couple of take-aways I’d like to end with: First, if you have been experiencing a spiritual season that seems like ‘winter’, know for certain that God is still with you and working in your life, even if you don’t feel His Presence at all. Second, know that it is a season and it will come to an end; many of us become restless and want the season to change tomorrow, but we must be patient. Third, Scriptures such as Psalm 88, show us what prayer looks like in a winter season and invite us to pour out our hearts -our pains and frustrations and questions- to God.
Many times in my life I have struggled against these ‘winter’ seasons and disregarded them as essentially unproductive times in my walk with Jesus, however the idea that our lives are made up of different spiritual seasons has helped me to re-frame how I respond to a winter season and see more clearly that there are activities of God in my life that can only happen in a winter season. I invite you to take some time and thing about some of the seasons of your own life and ask God what unique things He is doing in your life and what activities, such as prayer, He may be speaking to you about.
