Resting

What the creation tells us about winter is that it is a season of rest.  Some might be tempted to think of it as a season about dying, but if such is their conclusion, they are not paying attention.  Things do not die during winter.  They are dormant, they are resting.  The hayfields and pasture turn brown around here, the pecan trees are like barren skeletons suspended in the air, and the chickens quit laying eggs.  The chickens are now laying, the fields are rich green, and the pecan trees are on the edge of budding.  They were never dead, they were resting.    

They have work to do.  There is grass to grow and hay to make.  There is a pecan crop that is being promised.  The chickens are filling up the egg cartons faster than I can eat them and give them away.  The creation speaks to us in winter about resting.  It is a word we need to hear and include in our own living.  Being productive is the god of this contemporary culture, but no one is meant to be productive without rest.  This is one of the things God tells us though the creation.    

In the beginning the divine plan called for a day of rest.  It was to be a day of worship, but also a day given so that we might separate ourselves from those things which drain our energies.  Rest replenishes us.  It enables us to do what creation does after rest and that is to live fully according to the purpose for which we were created and as we do this, we bring glory to God.  We do not need to raise our hands to bring glory to God.  All we need to do is to be who the Creator created us to be.