Spiritual Growth Through the Seasons: Embracing God’s Rest

In this episode of the Confidence in God podcast, host Julie McGhghy explores the powerful connection between the natural seasons and our spiritual journey. Drawing inspiration from the changing trees of the Midwest, Julie unpacks how Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter mirror the cycles of growth, nourishment, and rest in our walk with God. Discover how to prepare for spiritual “winters” by storing up God’s Word during times of abundance, and learn why rest is not a sign of weakness, but a beautiful, God-ordained part of spiritual life. With biblical insights, practical analogies, and encouragement for every season, this episode will help you find confidence and peace as you rest in God—no matter what season you’re in. 

https://confidenceingod.com/resources/ 

https://www.sciencemadesimple.com/plants-in-winter.html 

Timeline

00:00 — Introduction & Welcome
 00:12 — The Principle: “As it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual”
 00:24 — Road Trip Story & Observing Fall Foliage
 01:22 — Resource Mention: “How to Have Confidence in Your Prayer Life”
 01:57 — God’s Lesson on Rest and the Beauty of Fall
 02:45 — Eighth Grade Science Refresher
 02:58 — Spring: Growth, Renewal, and New Life
 03:20 — Summer: Photosynthesis and Storing Energy
 04:32 — Winter: Trees Rest and Live Off Stored Food
 04:50 — Autumn: The Abscission Layer and Color Change
 05:59 — Spiritual Analogy: Summer as a Time of Growth
 06:27 — Storing Up God’s Word for Spiritual Fall
 07:07 — Spiritual Winter: Resting in God
 07:59 — Preparing for Spiritual Winters
 08:47 — Psalm 34:8-10 and Blessings of Fearing the Lord
 09:24 — Proverbs 2:1-5: Storing Up God’s Commands
 10:08 — The Results of Devouring God’s Word
 10:55 — Spiritual Autumn: Knowledge and Understanding
 11:12 — Becoming Beautiful to God Through Spiritual Growth
 11:30 — God’s View of Us in Spiritual Winters
 12:21 — Gaining Wisdom for Spiritual Winters
 12:44 — Psalm 63:1 and Spiritual Thirst
 13:19 — True Rest: Being Well-Nourished in God
 13:38 — Continuing to Seek God in Winter
 14:04 — Encouragement: Wait on the Lord
 14:16 — Quick Summary of Spiritual Seasons
 15:14 — Confidence Through Spiritual Preparation
 15:37 — Resource Reminder & Call to Subscribe
 16:08 — Closing Blessing & Farewell
 16:17 — End of Episode

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to the Confidence in God podcast. I am your host, Julie McGhghy, and our goal today is to help you walk with confidence in God. Have you ever heard the saying,"as it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual"? This phrase is taken from the biblical principle stated in one Corinthians 15:46. Recently, I drove over 2000 miles in seven days to visit three different Midwestern cities in the United States. It was during the Fall season. Although I found it to be a lot of miles on the road, I was happy to be able to observe the beauty of the Fall foliage in what I believed to have been the peak time of the season. I began looking toward Winter and asking God why the Fall was so beautiful when it was merely a short precursor to the dormancy of Winter. It reminded me of this biblical principle. So today I wanna look at the natural process of the growth and changes of trees throughout the four seasons we experience in the Midwest and analogize that natural process to the spiritual process of finding our rest in God. But before we get started, I invite you to check out a resource titled How to Have Confidence in Your Prayer Life. As we discuss the natural process of the changes of the trees and apply that process to our spiritual growth, you'll find that prayer will play an important role, and this resource may help you as you seek to apply this principle to your life. You can have instant access to it by going to confidenceingod.com/resources. I'll drop a link to the resource in the show notes for your convenience. As I drove throughout the Midwest and asked God why the beauty of fall was a mere precursor to the dormancy of Winter, God began speaking to me about rest, particularly about the beauty of entering into a place of rest. So let's look at the natural process of the changing of the leaves in the Fall and apply it to the spiritual process of finding our rest in God. According to Science Made Simple, Autumn or Fall, is the transition between Summer and Winter. Leaves actually begin preparing for Autumn as soon as they start growing in the Spring. For those of you who would like to read more about this, I'll drop the link to the Science Made Simple article in the show notes. Please excuse my review of eighth grade science. Since I needed it to fully understand what God was showing me, I expect some of you might need it too. So let's start with Spring. In Spring, the earth begins to warm as the daylight rapidly increases. This causes new plant growth. Generally, there is a lot of moisture as snow melts and rains begin. Unstable weather likely occurs. Spring is a time of growth, renewal and new life. During the Summer, plants are making and storing food and are growing. This is facilitated by the long hours of sunlight and the good supply of liquid water. Trees take water from the ground through their roots. The leaves take in the carbon dioxide from the air. Using sunlight, they turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose, a kind of sugar, through the process of photosynthesis, which means putting together with light. A chemical called chlorophyll is what gives, leaves their green color. However, the beautiful golds, oranges, and reds are also in the leaves. They just cannot be seen due to the amount of chlorophyll in the leaves. Plants use the glucose as food for energy and as a building block for growing. During Summer days, leaves make more glucose than the tree needs for energy and growth. The excess is turned into starch and stored until needed. Before looking at Autumn, let's consider what trees do in the Winter when there is not enough light or water for photosynthesis. It is during the Winter that trees rest. They live off the food they stored during the Summer. Let's now turn to Autumn. As the light gets shorter in the Autumn, plants begin to shut down their food production. At the base of each leaf is a special layer of cells called the“abscission” or separation layer. In the fall, the cells of the abscission layer swell and form a cork like material reducing, and finally cutting off flow between the leaf and the tree. Glucose and waste products are trapped in the leaf. Without fresh water to renew it, chlorophyll begins to disappear, causing the green color to fade and allowing the golds, oranges, and reds to be seen. The bright reds and purples in leaves result from glucose that is trapped in the leaves after photosynthesis stops. The brown colors, including golds and oranges, result from the waste products left in the leaves. It is the combination of all these things that make the beautiful Fall foliage colors we enjoy each year. Now let's analogize this natural process to the spiritual process by first considering the spiritual Summer of our lives. It is during the Summer that we are to be eating and growing. But what do we eat? We can eat healthy or we can eat junk food. Just like the trees, we can store up energy, glucose, or we can store up waste. How do we store up energy to produce beautiful red and purple leaves during our spiritual Fall. By devouring God's words. His words are as honey, which is sweet to our taste according to Psalm 119:103. Eating God's Word produces wisdom in our souls according to Proverbs 24:13-14. Then Proverbs 9:1-6 tells us that with wisdom, we leave our simple ways and we walk in the ways of understanding. During the spiritual Winter, we rest in God. God knows we need rest. One reason He gave us the Sabbath is for rest according to Exodus 20:8-11. In Mark 6:30-32, Jesus encouraged His disciples to rest. He didn't just send them to a quiet place of their own finding to rest. He urged them to come with Him to a quiet place to get rest. Even when talking to the multitudes in Matthew 11:28-29, He encouraged them to come to Him to find rest. In the Old Testament, king David understood the source of rest. He pinned Psalm 62:1, explaining that his soul finds rest in God alone. Jesus intends for us to have spiritual Winters, those times when we must rest in Him. So how do we make it through the spiritual Winters when there is no growth, no energy production? We ensure that during our spiritual Summers we are eating the good food, that which produces glucose, not waste. And we eat enough to store the excess. We cannot eat only enough to meet our current needs. We cannot merely do the minimum. If we do, we will not have enough good food, enough glucose to sustain us through the Winter. Psalm 34:8-10 tells us to taste and see that the Lord is good. If we fear the Lord, we will lack nothing. In fact, according to Psalm 128:1-4, those who fear the Lord are blessed. We will eat the fruit of our labor, blessings and prosperity will be ours. What does it mean to fear the Lord? A dear friend of mine describes the fear of the Lord as being obsessed with God. Proverbs 2:1-11 illustrates this concept. Let's start with verses one through five."My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding. And if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding,...and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God." Does this not sound like obsession? Is this not illustrating the storing up of God's Word and commands? Let's continue so we see the result of devouring His Word, what our spiritual Autumns will look like. Starting in verse six and going through verse 11,"For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, He's a shield for those whose walk is blameless, for He guards the course of the just and protects the way of His faithful one. Then you'll understand what is right and just and fair every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you and understanding will guard you." This is the spiritual Autumn; what will sustain us through the spiritual Winters: knowledge and understanding; victory through Jesus as our shield and our guard; discretion that protects us. By eating up His word, remaining in the light of Jesus during our spiritual Summers, our times of hunger and growth, we will become beautiful to God, just as the Fall foliage is to us during our spiritual Autumns. God finds us beautiful when we are preparing to enter His rest, not just when we are in the midst of growth, we will have spiritual Winters. And I have often heard people in spiritual winters feeling as if they are lacking something or failing God because there is not that intense hunger that they are used to. It is because I have found myself in spiritual winters that I sought God and asked why the Earth is so beautiful as it is heading into dormancy, which is not so lovely. He has assured me that we all need times of rest. As we prepare for that rest in Him, He finds us just as beautiful as when we are aggressively pursuing him. If during our spiritual Summers we have treasured him, stored up His Word within us, cried out for understanding and sought Him as a hidden treasure, then in Autumn, we will gain the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding we need to sustain us through the Winter. Psalm 63:1 describes our spiritual Winters. It's when our souls thirst for God, our flesh longs for Him in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. Yet verses two and three show us that we are sustained by what we experienced in the Summer, where we devoured God's Word and spent much time in prayer being nourished and growing. Because of that experience, we can praise him in the winter. If we want true rest in the Winter, being well-nourished during the time of rest, take in more than just the minimum of God's Word, spirit and commands during the Summer in order to have excess through the Winters. During the Winter, continue to seek Him by faith, standing on the Word you feasted upon in the Summer. Remember that it is God who works in you, energizing and creating in you the power and desire to do his will. When you are fully rested and your faith has been strengthened, you will find Him calling you, feeding you again in the Spring. Don't be discouraged in the Winter. Psalm 27:14,"Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart." This was a lot of information. Let me summarize it quickly. Just as there are natural seasons and processes that cause growth in change of trees, we encounter spiritual seasons. It is in our spiritual Springs and Summers that we are able to feed on God's word, which is sweet to our taste. It will produce wisdom in our souls to help us walk in understanding. When we take in more than we need during these seasons, we have the excess to get us through the spiritual Falls and Winters, those times of God ordained rest in Him. I hope you will take in this information, study it, and apply it to your life so you can withstand all of your spiritual seasons. Check out the transcript of this episode, which you can find on this website where you found this podcast to help you consider it further. You can be confident that you can get through the dormant spiritual Winters where God has called you to rest in Him by preparing throughout the spiritual Springs and Summers. I would love to hear from you. Share with me some of your spiritual seasons and how they helped you get through your spiritual Winters of rest in God. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I invite you to check out a resource titled How to Have Confidence in Your Prayer Life. It will help you have confidence in your prayers, even in the quiet, restful times of Winter. Just click the link in the show notes and click on the resource. That's it for today. Please take a second to subscribe to our show so you'll be notified when future episodes come out. Also, it would be great if you would rate or review our show. That way more people can find out about it. Until next time, let's be confident in this, that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.