Frost coats the leaves and grass of our yards this morning. Our furnaces are running and our homes have patches of chill mixed with warmth as the cold season is descending on us. In Virginia the coming season always shows up first in "previews" before settling in for a three month stay. We've been enjoying last vestiges of summer, as well, with mild temperatures as the previous season has reluctantly departed. But there is a special quality to cold weather, frost, ice, snow and frigid blasts of air from arctic areas far away...It draws us to appreciate deep, penetrating warmth. The hearth and fireplace, a mug of hot chocolate or coffee and the experience of "being warmed" from the outside in and the inside out carry satisfactions only made possible by first being cold. The frost outside today reminds me that we start from a place of cold. shivering isolation in life. Even if we have known love from family and others...we start our lives outside the direct warmth of our Creator. It's as though we stand in the frosty yard of the Lord and peer through windows to behold the lights and hearth of His great palace. At a certain point, like a doorman of the Lord, Jesus has opened the great door and beckoned us to come in. We entered and found warmth that embraced us just as He delivered us from the icy isolation of sin.
The cold of winter finds its antidote in the warm places that draw us near. The frost of sin and separation quickly thaw in the presence of the Lord of love.
Zechariah 14:8 On that day life-giving waters will flow out from Jerusalem, half toward theDead Sea and half toward the Mediterranean,flowing continuously in both summer and winter.
9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day there will be one Lord—his name alone will be worshiped.
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