This verse from the Gospel of John always jumps out at me: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. For my faith to grow stronger, I too need these periods of reflection. The flowers of spring would not blossom without what goes on underground, unseen, all winter. These bleak seasons are not only inevitable but necessary.
No matter how lost you feel right now, keep listening for him. Then I’d realize that if I kept searching and listening, I’d find what I was looking for. Keeping the Faith 2000 PG-13 2 h 8 m IMDb RATING 6.4 /10 52K YOUR RATING Rate POPULARITY 6,819 844 Play trailer 2:25 1 Video 19 Photos Comedy Drama Romance Two friends, a priest and a rabbi, fall in love with the same woman they knew in their youth, but the religious position of both men denies them romance. I felt bewildered whenever I was “cold.” The clues didn’t add up nothing made sense. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Column. But remember the childhood game of Hot and Cold, in which someone hides an item and you have to find it? When you got really close, the other person would say “hot.” If you were somewhere in the vicinity, you were “lukewarm.” And when you were nowhere near? “Cold.” Keeping the Faith is a column featuring the perspectives of a variety of faith leaders from the Columbus area. Maybe a blizzard of bad feelings has enveloped you. We will experience more than one spiritual winter in our lives, when we feel we are stumbling around in the dark, alone, disconnected from God.
Perhaps Jesus prepares Christians for frustration with the parable of the sower in Mark 4:3-9 when so many reject the gospel of Christ through. Christians will be rewarded if they persevere to the end. Still, I get sad when the days get shorter and the darkness of the season sets in. It separates us from the values of our culture and makes us appear ridiculous to believe in the unseen. There are things I appreciate: the holidays, cozying up with a mug of hot tea, the beauty of a blanket of snow covering the ground.