Snow is beautiful when it is softly falling over a beautiful landscape of hills, trees, and rivers. It almost seems like a crime to think any ill thoughts when everything looks like a sweet winter wonderland.

But then there is another side of snow. With every snowflake that falls, it can potentially add to a situation that can cause trouble for our trains to travel. Too much snow can actually cause avalanches in the mountains, completely covering the tracks or even destroy an entire train. Or if the snow freezes on the tracks forming ice, the train cannot receive the power it needs to run because of overheating power cables due to the electrified third rail being coated in ice. An electrified third rail is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway track.

Have you ever had a day, a week, or even a month where it seems like little things keep falling in your life causing you to get bogged down to a point you no longer have joy in your life? This has been me lately. I have felt like everything around me seems to add to my sad state of mind, suffocating my spiritual life and killing my happiness.

The weather has even affected my state of mind. The last few weeks have been warm, sunny, and beautiful, but now the last few days have been non-stop snow fall. With every snowflake that falls my heart has seemed to go with it.

So, why do Christians go through this? I have been saved since I was 4 years old, shouldn’t I have this Christian life thing down by now? Why can things in this world affect us so much even though we know we have God with us? I know all the promises and truths of the Bible, so why am I constantly fighting the up and down state of mind? Can’t I just be happy?

“God, what am I doing wrong?”

After asking myself this, I realized that it isn’t because God isn’t there, or that he doesn’t want to spend time with me that I feel this way. It is actually me that is the problem. The falling snow in my life, I put there. The things that have been bogging me down and putting me in a separated state from God, are all things I have allowed myself to be distracted by over a long period of time. I gave myself the ok to be focused on other things rather than God. The more time we spend away from God, the more our lives will be affected and the more alone we will feel because God isn’t able to be there for us in His word.

So, to remove the snow off of tracks, trains need to be equipped with a plow that helps push it away, but when it is too deep for locomotives to plow, then railroads use on-track machinery, massive bulldozers and specialized cars that can move tons of snow at once. We need to equip ourselves with a plow, removing the things in our lives that are distracting us, and then let God use his bulldozer to clean up our hearts and minds, so we can once again have a clear path to follow him once again.

After doing this, we can once again enjoy the beauty of the snow all around us having found our joy in what really matters, our relationship with God.