The Cycle of Seasonal Discontentment

It's almost March. Yet where I live, snow still clings to the dead trees and lumps together in awkward patches over brown grass. I was talking to someone in Minnesota yesterday, and she too testified to the fact that winter is far from over. But for goodness' sake! It's almost Daylight Saving time again! When will winter go? I'm ready for spring, for flowers, for green grass, to shed my boots and mittens, for Easter, and butterflies, and songbirds!

Does that sound familiar? This is me at the end of winter. And then near late May, early June, you'll hear the "summer rant," about how I'm soo ready for the weather to just warm up already. Seriously, will summer never come? But by mid-August, I'm already complaining about the heat and the humidity and too many bugs and, excuse me, when are the leaves going to change? Naturally, fall is no different, because by the time November rolls around, I'm practically glued to the window, looking for snowflakes. Sure, snow can cause some problems, but isn't it pretty? And winter just might as well get here now. But, oh wait, now it's the end of February, early March, and I hate winter again.

I call it the cycle of seasonal discontentment. We hate it, we love it, we loathe it, we complain about it. It's what we do. All of us - not just Christians or non-Christians. It's almost like a culturally-mandated thing. It's not too often you hear someone actually happy about bad weather. You probably give them that look that says I-think-you're-crazy-but-I'm-too-polite-to-say-so. But that's because we just don't look at weather in the right way. Sure, it can muck up our plans, but all of it is from God - ordained by Him and decreed by Him.

Yours [God] is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.

So says Psalm 74:16-17, when it was just as true as it is today. All weather is from God, so when we choose to complain about it, we're complaining about the gift God has seen fit to give us. You say to me, "How can this snow be a gift if it causes us to cancel our church services?" Because it gives glory to God, and testifies to His greatness. We can choose to embrace it or complain about it. Not all the weather's pretty or easy or comfortable or conducive to prearranged plans, but it is all under the sovereignty of God. Not a snowflake falls, not a leaf turns green that is not under the providence of God. 

Will you choose to break the cycle of seasonal discontentment? Take joy in each day God gives you, each breath, whether you breathe it in winter or spring, among dead trees or blooming ones, under grey skies or blue ones. For He has given us this weather - who are we to say we don't like it?