How are you feeling about autumn? The weather and the colors this year have been terrific, you must admit. But now, the flowers are spoiling, the colors are fading, and the long, warm days are perishing…and that can only mean one thing: Winter is coming.
Winter is coming. Stuffing kids into snowpants, boots, mittens, scarves, and coats. Scraping windshields, shoveling walkways, and plowing driveways. Leaving for work and coming home in the pitch dark. Winter can get old.
And some of you are facing a double-whammy of sorts. In addition to the coming cold, you may be worrying about: unemployment or job security, surgery, chemotherapy or other medical care, separation or divorce, upcoming bills or eviction.
If you are dreading life’s next season, the falling leaves outside may cause distress. But what if all the perishing and spoiling and fading we see around us could actually serve as a bright and hopeful reminder of the promises of God?
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you…” (1 Peter 1:3-4).
An inheritance that doesn’t perish, spoil, or fade? That’s unthinkable. Those three words describe the destiny of everything in this life—even the best things: gardens full of fruits and veggies, youthful beauty, and young love. Healthy bodies and rewarding work. And one day even our most precious of things—our relationships—will end. All things degenerate and die.
Talk about distressing! Our hearts yearn for something more. Something that won’t perish, spoil, or fade. If in this life only we have hope, we are most to be pitied! Be encouraged! We have a hope beyond this life! A hope that answers every sadness, every pain, every bleak tomorrow. We have an inheritance. It is eternal. It is glorious. It is secure.
“This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials” (1 Peter 1:4-6).
We don’t have the answer to when or where or why we must endure various griefs. But we can be infinitely comforted that God is working it all for our ultimate good. And we can hold firm to the knowledge that one day, we will look into the face of our Maker and He will give us a secure, glorious, unfading, unspoiling, unperishing inheritance beyond our wildest dreams.
Winter may be coming, but so is spring.
