If Winter Comes!

 Thought For Today -November 20
If Winter Comes
By: Robert A. Searles

      As I gaze through my window on this chilly November morning, I am beholding the inevitable death of summer. I see the last rose on the bush fading away and gasping for its' last breath, it seems. 

Trees and flowers which only a few weeks ago were in their heyday and ablaze with beauty and glory are losing their beauty, and soon will lie dormant in the frozen grasp of winter. The leaves are falling and the cold winds blow, and the days grow long and dreary as all the world seems to be ready to close its' eyes and succumb to the death and long sleep of winter.

      Then my thoughts are turned to myself, and I begin to realize that I too am on the threshold of that winter sleep called death. Many of my loved ones and friends have, like the leaves on the trees, fallen to the earth in submission to the wages of sin, which is death. As I mediate on these things and look at the bareness of the fields and trees, and wish it were spring, then I begin to realize, soon it will be spring again. After the winter is past, the earth will return in its' orbit, gentle breezes will blow again, and alas! The buds will spring forth again on the trees, the flowers will bloom again, and the birds will once again send forth their sweet song. As someone has already asked: “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”

      If a man dies shall he live again? Oh yes! I know, even as Job of old said: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another: though my reins be consumed within me.” Job 19: 25-27.

When spring comes again, the bush will have a new rose, the trees will have new leaves, the fields will burst forth with new life and all will be alive again.

      Even though I despair and sorrow now for awhile, I know that I shall rejoice later. As the songwriter has encouraged us with the words of that beautiful song: “Some golden daybreak Jesus will come.” On that bright spring morning Christ shall appear and abolish sin and death and spiritual winter forever. I shall have new body as do the trees have new leaves.

      “Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favor is life: Weeping may endurer for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Psalm 30: 4,5.

Telehelp Publications Christian Literature Ministry 

http://telehelppublications.blogspot.com