“From whose womb comes the ice?” God asked somebody that question a long time ago, and if you’re anything like me, you’ve recently been asking the Lord if He has an answer. The historic cold front we experienced two weeks ago introduced many of us to cooler temperatures than we’ve ever felt in our entire life. Only twice in the last 200 years was it colder in MN than it was last week; once in 1996 by a single degree, and again that same year by only four. So yeah, it was plenty cold. And if you were one of the unfortunate souls who didn’t work for the school system or the USPS, you probably left the house. If you did, you know how it felt. It was terrible. It was so cold, it burned. I could’ve crawled inside my freezer and enjoyed a 50 degree warm-up! Penguins even thought about moving here!

I’ve yet to meet anybody who enjoyed it.

The Coldest Place on the Planet

The state of Minnesota, however, isn’t the only place on earth that’s subject to extreme temperature drops. The human heart is capable of some record-setting lows of its own, isn’t it? Every Christian soul, including yours & mine, has had a spell where the warmth we felt toward Christ and His people was at an all-time low. We’d rather not be reminded of such statistics, but in severe cases, numbers like that are hard to forget. Alternating seasons of warm and cool might be fairly normal in a Christian’s life, but when the degree of our affections bottom out altogether, and the forecast shows no sign of an upward trend, things can get kind of scary. I dread the day that we set the next low-temp record in MN, but even more than that, I fear another deep-freeze of the heart. It comes fast and it comes unexpectedly, and it doesn’t care whether you’re ready or not.

Nobody likes that. Not even penguins.

I wish I had some foolproof methodology on how to escape the pitfalls of a cold heart. If I did, I would certainly share it with you, but, unfortunately, weather seems to have a mind of its own. In America, you might be able to hop in your R.V. and drive south, but in the Kingdom of God, there is no Florida. There is no Arizona. There’s nowhere you can go to “winter-over” in the comforts of borrowed warmth. Each of us is called to “bear our own burden”, and that includes the microclimate of a frozen heart.

The Warmest Place in the World

I was chipping through several inches of solid ice on my front steps the other day, feeling tempted to grumble and complain beyond the moral threshold. But just before the heavy-duty ice-chipper cracked in half, I remembered that the rest of the city was having to endure the exact same thing. And in all honesty, I took comfort in that. Further complaining would’ve induced guilt, because, of all the people in this city, certainly there had to be one or two that were pushing through the misery with a better attitude than I was. Surprisingly, I found myself being held accountable by people I’d never met! And suddenly, I wasn’t alone in my misery anymore, a positive outlook wasn’t beyond my reach, and that made the whole sad situation a bit more tolerable. I, along with the rest of the folks in my community, were in this cold mess together, and that made a strange difference in my mind.   

How important it is to live in community! To know that we’re not alone when the weather turns sour. Even if we’re not in each other’s immediate company, we know that there are other believers from our own church family who are facing off against the same spiritually inclement ‘weather’ that we are, and doing it faithfully. We’re in this cold mess together. Sure, we’re still called to “bear our own burden” in this respect, but just knowing that others are out there doing the same, can kindle a small flame in the darkest pit of a numbing heart. Christians in fellowship inadvertently “bear each other’s burdens” by bearing their own burdens well; with an attitude that inspires their brothers to sing beneath the weight, rather than to murmur & mumble.

Real Trouble

I recently learned that on any given night in Duluth, there are between 125 & 200 homeless people sleeping on the streets. This figure of course bore particular significance during our latest polar exploit. Cities across the Midwest opened “warming centers” for vagrants to get out of the cold and survive the worst of it. Duluth followed suit, but it made me wonder what it would take for a person to make it through the night alive. What if there were no ‘warming centers’? Could a person actually live through something like this? How would you survive?

You know who’s in real trouble on a night like that? Even more so than the homeless in the city is the one who’s stranded in the wild, all alone & isolated from every human contact. No fellowship. No one to share the pain with. Nobody to help him cope with the cold. Sub-zero temps are dangerous enough, but seclusion only makes matters worse. Fortunately, for people in a frigid land like ours, God has opened warming centers all across the Midwest. They’re called “churches”, and they’re for spiritual vagrants like us to huddle together and survive the extreme weather of a hardening heart. How often has it been the loving concern of a fellow Christian that proved to be the very thing needed to pull you in, out of the cold?

Stay Warm

Frigid weather like we’ve had in the past is inevitable. It comes with the territory. As long as we live in this harsh region (or this ‘harsh region’ exists within us), we can expect spells of alarmingly low temperatures. People who live in this dark world need each other, and that’s why God has given us the church. Don’t stay out in the open air when you feel the chill of another record-setting cold front descending upon your heart. Let the warmth of Christian fellowship keep you alive. It will. It’s what we’re here for.