My recent social media feed was filled with reminders to take things slow, especially after the hectic holiday season. Reel after reel suggested that I rest in the cozy comfort of my home and delay specific tasks that might make me feel rushed or anxious. The evidence to back their ideas was typically rooted in nature, pointing to flowers that aren’t blooming and animals in hibernation.
While I see their point, I don’t fully buy into the idea of a “slow and steady” winter. As a Tennessean homesteader in the brutally icy foothills of the Smokies, my family and I are busy working our land. And we can attest that many animals are not hibernating and are, in fact, very active, both day and night. Their cozy comforts aren’t created by resting, but by showing up for the day's routine survival.
I’m afraid that if we ignore the parts of nature staying true to their hard work, we will fail to realize that winter isn’t always about boarding up the doors, hunkering under a blanket, and binge-watching TV.
Meanwhile, as I nest and prepare for my second son to enter the world early in April, I’ve found a new sense of joy and contentment in cleaning, gathering, preparing, digging, and harvesting what’s alive and well despite the season. So perhaps spring cleaning is more than just cleaning out the fridge and dusting off the shelf decor. Maybe spring cleaning is a spiritual practice that awakens in us a desire to cultivate goodness, richness, and warmth that would remain dormant if we considered winter as a three-month hiatus from life.
Maybe it’s not resting from but resting in that makes winter less about isolation and retreat and more about measured, attainable moments of purpose and growth.
Let’s look at why:
Understanding Biblical Rest
Modern definitions of rest look much different than the model left to us in Scripture. Culture encourages us to “dip out,” “veg out,” or “just get some space” from all of life’s demands. Meanwhile, Christ says to show up when it’s uncomfortable, stay vigilant in heart and mind, and gather with other believers to keep the body and soul rejuvenated. When culture screams “Run from,” God says, “Run to.” When the world says, “Stop and forget it all,” God says, “Pause and remember your why.”
The first time we see the Sabbath is when God established it after creating the world. Genesis 2:2-3 (ESV) says, “And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”
God’s decision to actively rest was always intentional, consistently implemented with something more in mind. And this “something more” wasn’t a miserable obligation to things that drain us or threaten the overall well-being of our families. Instead, this “something more” was holiness. Rest became holy because it was invented and acted upon by Holiness Himself. Thus, rest is never about laziness but about becoming more like God.
Admitting Rest’s True Purpose
Rest, as we see in Isaiah, has a working purpose: “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry” (Isaiah 55:10, NLT). While social media convinces us that nature sleeps until the earth warms again, nature is actually doing the grunt work to sustain spring, summer, and fall. Nature is, quite literally, the reason we survive year-round. (And I hate to say it, friends, but we don’t prepare ourselves for the rest of the year—and we certainly don’t become more like God—by ditching the world, scrolling to no end, and binging Gilmore Girls all winter long.)
Again, I’m not saying we should never take breaks or indulge in a hobby that lets us step away from the usual routine. I’m a pregnant toddler mama who gladly takes twenty minutes nearly every day and grabs a fun drink at the nearby coffee shop, just so no one is touching or pulling on me. I gladly sign up for candle-making workshops and writing conferences to mix things up when life feels a bit mundane. Don’t neglect the simple joys that honor the budget and respect God’s ways.
However, if your mindset for the entire winter season is to check out from all things, including personal reflection, prayer, a desire to grow, and fellowship with other believers, it’s not resting. It’s retreating from life. Just like the bear who eventually has to leave his cave to find food, you, too, must return to reality. If you’ve spent the winter doing nothing to clean up your heart and clean out your mind of unhealthy things, you’re back to the same miserable place you started when you entered your winter hermit state.
Recognizing Scripture’s Call for Growth
Our ability to stay the Christian course requires consistent growth, even if the growth includes healthy habits of rest and rejuvenation. Scripture makes this call to consistency very clear:
“Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.” 1 Timothy 4:15
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” Hebrews 5:12-14
“Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God again…” Hebrews 6:1
“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment…” Philippians 1:9
“And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great.” Job 8:7
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed.” 2 Corinthians 13:5-7
“So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation-- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” 1 Peter 2:1-3
“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” Colossians 2:6-7
We were called to a continuous process of becoming, because in our becoming more like Christ, we find proper rest, the kind that will sustain us long after the snow melts and the earth is ready to try again.
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/Halfpoint
