Hope: A Golden Cord

It has been rather warm as of late; seasonally warm for January. Freezing temperatures welcome the New Year, yet we are soaking up the sun’s rays as water unearthed in a dry, parched desert. 

The days are exhibiting the likes of spring. The sun came and warmed the earth; warmed my skin. Should you turn your ear toward creation, you would hear the stretching and wakening of the leaves that had gone to sleep for the winter; naively fooled into believing it was time to awake. A lone, puzzled honeybee buzzes my head.

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, By the gazelles or by the hinds of the field, That you do not arouse or awaken my love Until she pleases {Song of Songs 2:7}.

Suddenly, like an undesirable guest, the cold startles me back into the reality of winter. The season is unrelenting; it leaves a reminder with a blanket of fresh snow and bitter temperatures, evidenced in the vapor of my breath, that it is not ready to leave. A wind so bitter, it blankets my bones with a chill not easily remedied.

The warm days brighten and defrost the soul, but when the cold of winter rears its chilling head, it seems more brutal; a cruel aide-mémoire that the warmth will not last; winter taunting. The leaves that awoke curl back into their protective cocoons until spring arrives in a pageant of celebration.

But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture {Malachi 4:2 NLT}.

So it is in our walk with God. It is inevitable that we will endure a winter season, so whatever needs to die, will die. The cold causes us to forget that the warmth of spring will bring fresh life. The winter taskmaster is cruel. We experience glorious moments with Him in the midst of the cold, dark winter, and the warmth defrosts the immobilizing effects on our soul, but the reality of the present season rudely interrupts; we ache for the warmth again. The days of warmth offer a glimmer of hope that spring is on its way, and that winter will not endure forever.

Hang on to hope. Hope is a golden cord to heaven. The hope that spring will arrive, enables us to endure winter; the seasons in our Chronos are changing; the cycles of the earth are ever faithful in the hand of its Creator. It is preordained; winter will blow its chilling frost to the other side of the globe, as the earth revolves in its orbit; awakening my hemisphere to the trumpeting of spring.

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night shall not cease {Genesis 8:22 NASB}.

If only I felt the same inevitability of the seasons of my soul. I have lingered in this winter for so long…must I endure this cold and death another day? I do not yet feel the promise of spring;

Blow, blow, thy winter wind…although thy breath be rude. ~Shakespeare

Oh, but the golden cord of hope glimmers bright. When the high priest entered into the Holy of Holies, a golden cord was fastened to his ankle. Should the high priest die while serving, the remaining priests were able to pull him out.

God has fastened a gold cord to our ankle, to pull us out of the hopelessness of death and winter, and into the spring of new life. Though we can’t see or feel the change, and we linger in the season longer than we care to, He will interrupt the season of our soul, the Chronos with His Kairos; a divine interruption I can only grab hold of by faith. Hold on to hope; hope is the golden cord to heaven.

For we walk by faith, not by sight {2 Corinthians 5:7}.

Don't you know that day dawns after night, showers displace drought, and spring and summer follow winter? Then have hope! Hope forever, for God will not fail you! ~Charles Spurgeon