By the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

Dear soul, begin this wintry month with your God. Let the cold snow and piercing wind remind you He keeps His covenant with you day and night. And let that give you the assurance He will also keep the glorious covenant He made with you in the person of Christ Jesus. He who is true to His Word in the cycle of the seasons of this poor sin-polluted world will not then prove to be unfaithful in His dealings with His own well-beloved Son.

Winter in the soul can be an uncomfortable season as well. If it is something you are experiencing right now, consider this word of comfort, namely, that the Lord has sent it. He sends the cold blasts of adversity to nip the buds of our expectations. “He . . . scatters the frost like ashes” over the once green meadows of our joy and “hurls down his hail like pebbles” (Ps. 147:16 – 17), freezing the streams of our delight. He does it all, for He is the King of Winter, ruling even the realms of frost. Therefore, we should not complain, for losses, crosses, weariness, sickness, poverty, and a thousand other difficulties are sent by the Lord and come to us through His wise purpose. Remember, frost also kills deadly insects, stemming agonizing diseases. It softens the hardness of the soil as well and sweetens our soul. Oh, that such good results would always follow our winters of affliction!

Oh, how we enjoy the warm cheerful glow of a roaring fire on the hearth on a cold wintry day! In the same manner, may we treasure our Lord who is the constant source of warmth and comfort in every time of trouble. May we “come near to God” (James 4:8) and find our joy and peace through faith in Him. May we wrap ourselves in the warm garments of His promises and go forth to service appropriate to the season, never being like “the sluggard [who] will not plow by reason of the [winter] cold; therefore shall he beg in [the summer] harvest, and have nothing” (Prov. 20:4 KJV).

By the pen of Jim Reimann:

Today Spurgeon mentions God’s covenant with day and night. What He is referring to is this: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Gen. 8:22). In a world seemingly obsessed over climate change and the possibility of global warming, what a comfort to know the Lord is the one in control! And if we can trust His sovereignty over the sun, the moon, the planets, and the seasons, surely we can trust Him when it comes to the seasons of our own soul.

Spurgeon, like many people today, suffered occasional bouts of depression. Yet from today’s devotion we see he understood that even those were sent to him with a purpose from his heavenly Father. If you can relate, may the experiences of Paul and David bring you comfort. Paul was once at the point where he “despaired even of life” and said, “Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.” Yet he saw God’s purpose in it, for he went on to say, “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:8 – 9). And David went from times of great elation to times of despair, yet prayed, “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there” (Ps. 139:8).