Your Winter Survival Kit: 7 Easy Hacks From the Virtual Jesus Challenge

Key Takeaways 

• Winter often brings with it three big struggles: spiritual dullness, physical discomfort, and emotional heaviness. 

• A lifestyle of prioritizing Jesus and your own health helps you overcome these seasonal challenges. 

• Rely on discipline over fleeting motivation to stay consistent. 

• Spend time in God’s Word every day to anchor your heart in truth instead of circumstances. 

• Maximize outside light and fresh air to boost mood and energy. 

• Move your body daily to reduce winter sluggishness. 

• Eat nourishing, energy-sustaining meals to support your goals. 

• Lean into rest and embrace God’s design for slower winter habits. 

• Intentionally stay connected with community to combat isolation and loneliness. 

• The virtual Jesus challenge provides a simple but powerful framework to make these habits a lifestyle. 

Now that the sparkle of Christmas is long-gone, winter is all that’s left. Painfully short days. Long, cold darkness.

 

Anyone else feel like hitting pause until spring arrives? ✋ Like THEN you’ll feel better, more motivated, more alive? 

Many of us want winter to end because we associate it with three uncomfortable experiences: 

1. Spiritual dullness – God seems quieter and more unreachable 

2. Physical discomfort – cold temps, low energy, stiff joints, sickness 

3. Emotional heaviness – isolation, depression, anxiety, and bone-deep exhaustion 

If you relate to any one of these, know that you are NOT a failure. Winter is demanding and difficult. It forces us to recognize and confront parts of ourselves we’d never have to deal with if it was always summer. 

If you’ve participated in the Jesus virtual challenge, you already know it’s an amazing tool to naturally help you overcome each of the Big Three struggles. Once you prioritize what’s most important (time with Jesus and taking care of yourself), voila! Those spiritual, physical, and emotional challenges tend to resolve themselves! 🤯

But the virtual Jesus challenge was never meant to just be a 40-day burst of performance. At its heart, the Forty Forty Challenge is a lifestyle built on profoundly simple rhythms that transform your life to the point you’re unrecognizable in your gratitude, peace, and genuine joy. 

And yes, these rhythms apply to winter as well. 

Instead of wasting these months and waiting for winter to be over, God invites us to steward it well. 🤲

Below is a practical, simple winter survival kit to make the virtual Jesus challenge habits a lifestyle. These small daily habits will help you overcome the Big Three discomforts of winter and enter spring a transformed person! 

1. Rely on Discipline, Not Motivation

We’ve all experienced the sudden rush of motivation when we start something new. It’s always very exciting and fresh, but it’s unreliable. You can’t choose motivation; it rises and falls with your energy, emotions, weather, sleep, and circumstances. 🌊

But you CAN choose discipline. 

In real life terms, discipline means faithful consistency, choosing conviction even when it’s inconvenient. We see this lived out in people like Noah, Daniel, David, Hannah, Stephen, and many more. 

Scripture often pairs discipline with self control, one of the fruits of the spirit. It describes it as the ability to restrain or moderate your desires, impulses, and feelings. This includes resisting the pull toward constant comfort and instant gratification. 

Ultimately, discipline leads you into greater dependence on God as you release control. 

Creating a lifestyle of discipline instead of motivation is a MASSIVE catalyst for transformation. I mean, you’ll be a completely different person. 👇  

Instead of living on the whims of momentary desires, your life, decisions, speech, relationships, and goals are ALL firmly grounded in the truth of God’s Word. Your habits don’t collapse when your energy dips, and your faith stays steady even with big emotions. 

Eliud Kipchoge, the greatest marathoner of all time, says, “Only the disciplined ones in life are free. If you are undisciplined, you’re a slave to your moods and passions.” 🫳🎤💥

I know this might feel overwhelming, and it’s impossible to overhaul your whole life all at once. But notice what area God’s pointing out right now that He wants you to surrender, and start there. As you follow and obey Him, He WILL in time bring about a total transformation of your life. 

So be brutally honest with yourself. What is He asking you to change today? 

Screen time? 

Your speech? 

Your attitude towards your spouse? 

Meals? 

Movement? 

Your full schedule? 

2. Spend Time in God’s Word Every Single Day

We all know we need it, but winter can make this SO hard to live out. And especially if our routine’s out of sync, God's Word tends to be the first thing we drop. 

But what happens when you let God speak to you before the noise of the day rises? Or if you just meditate on that verse hanging on your living room wall as you fold laundry? 

You feel confident, more focused, at peace, fully protected and fulfilled by God Himself. Wow. 🤯 

This doesn’t have to be long or impressive. A few minutes is enough. Anytime you open His Word, it’s always working and active, moving in your heart, thoughts, and actions to transform you and make you more like Christ. 

That’s the beautiful thing about this habit: all you have to do is show up! 🧎 And Spirit does the rest, whether your emotions are on board or not. 

Daily time in Scripture doesn’t eliminate all of winter’s challenges, but it gives you a solid Rock to stand on as you walk through them. And as you continue exposing your heart to God’s living Word, you’ll notice new life and warmth creep back into the once-dry relationship with God.  🌱

3. Maximize Outside Light and Fresh Air Exposure

I know we love our cozy indoor time during the winter, but too much indoor living fast-tracks you to low energy and foggy thinking. 

God designed our bodies to thrive in natural light and movement, not in dim rooms and endless screens. ☀️

Get outside at least 20 minutes every day, exposing your face to the sun and natural light and getting your heart rate up. You’ll be AMAZED at how refreshed and alive you feel afterwards! 🤸

This can be done so easily. 

🚶 A mile walk. 

☕ Standing outside while you sip your morning coffee. 

☃️ Letting the kids play outside while you bundle up and have a moment of alone time. 

🌬️ Opening your windows as you clean. 

Research consistently shows that daylight exposure helps combat seasonal depression, poor focus, and defective hormone functions. 

That’s amazing! God already built so much healing and medicine into creation. It’s totally FREE and wildly underused. 

So get your feet outside the door and let the Lord minister to you through His beautiful works. 😌 

4. Move Your Body DAILY 

Once winter settles in, we barely move at all. And while rest is good and appropriate for winter, our bodies aren’t designed for extended sitting and stillness. 🙅

Daily movement doesn’t need to be intense or time-consuming to get the job done.

Here’s what it can look like:

• A short walk. 

• Stretching while the coffee brews. 

• Taking a dance break from homeschooling. 

• Strength or mobility work at home. 

• Walking while you pray or listen to Scripture. 

• Using that dusty, long-forgotten exercise equipment in your garage. 

Every bit counts! 

At the end of the day, daily movement becomes an act of obedience to care for the body God entrusted to you. That’s why walking is one of the two main pillars in the virtual Jesus challenge. It’s a TOTAL gamechanger in energy, emotions, and spiritual awareness. 

Have you moved today? 👟

 

5. Eat Nourishing, Energy-Supportive Meals

Food is another excellent example of God’s gift of free, healing medicine. 

When your meals lack protein, healthy fats, and minerals, winter fatigue ramps up. 📈 Energy crashes, mood swings, cravings, and feeling cold all become more pronounced and difficult to navigate. 

What you eat DIRECTLY impacts how you feel, both physically and emotionally. 

Nourishing, energy-supportive meals help: 

• Stabilize your blood sugar (fewer crashes and irritability) 

• Support your immune system through cold and flu season 

• Improve your mental focus and emotional regulation 

• Provide sustained energy and warmth throughout the day 

These aren’t complicated recipes or expensive ingredients. Here are a few ideas to get you started: 

• Protein-rich breakfasts (eggs, yogurt, leftover burgers or meat, yes leftovers) 🥚

• Winter soups, stews, and slow-cooker meals 🍜

• Healthy fats like butter, avocados, bone broth 🧈

• Root veggies and squash 🥔

• Balanced snacks that always include a significant amount of protein, not just carbs 🥓

Food makes or breaks the rest of your goals. When you consistently give your body what it needs, you can show up spiritually, physically, and emotionally as the person you want to be. 

Within the virtual Jesus challenge, nourishing meals supports the discipline of daily moment and time in the Word. Don’t power through this winter on empty calories or on an empty stomach! God gave us healing, healthy foods to steward our lives for Him. 

6. Lean Into Rest During Winter

We discussed God’s design for winter in a recent blog, highlighting it as a season of rest and root-work. God didn’t design winter to look like summer with a coat on. 🥶

In nature, growth happens underground during the winter. It doesn’t go on hold until summer. The whole system strengthens during winter as roots grow deeper and energy builds for the harvest. 🌾 God designed our bodies and souls with this same pattern. 

Here’s what rest looks like practically: 

• Sleeping more 

• Saying no to unnecessary commitments 

• Creating earlier evenings and slower mornings 

• Choosing gentle movement over intensity 

• Building margin 

• Letting go of productivity guilt 

Rest is often confused with laziness, but according to God, it’s an act of trust. 

When you resist rest, winter turns into a heavy burden you were never meant to carry. But when you align yourself with God’s intent for this season, all that pressure and heaviness falls away and you walk through winter just as you were designed to. 

The Jesus virtual challenge prioritizes intentional movement and time in the Word, helping you slow down the chaotic racetrack of life. It gives you permission to breathe, relax your mind and body, and take on a posture of rest before God. 

What’s the first step you’ll take towards rest today? 🤲

7. Don’t Over-Isolate, Invite Community In

Cold weather, short days, busy schedules, and low energy make it tempting to pull inward and disappear. While rest and quiet are healthy habits during winter, prolonged isolation often amplifies emotional heaviness. 

God designed us to heal, grow, and persevere in community. 👥 Not in either extreme of constant togetherness or in constant isolation, but in a balanced measure of connection to each other. 

This balance of rest and community can look like: 

• Walking with a friend once a week 

• Inviting another family over for soup or coffee 

• Enjoying snow days with friends 

• Letting a friend see you even when you’re low energy 

• Planning a few play dates with good friends 

• Calling a trusted friend to pray together 

I know it can be intimidating to reach out or plan something, but courage is often the very first thing that lifts the heaviness you’re carrying. 🌱

God loves to work through His children, challenging, strengthening, and encouraging your heart. If you stay isolated and alone, it’s easy to get lost in thought spirals and incorrect assumptions about yourself, God, and the world. 😫 God made His church a multi-faceted body on purpose, reflecting His own existence of the Trinity. 

How will you bring community into your life this month? 

Make the Jesus Virtual Challenge a Lifestyle

As you look at these habits, they create a lifestyle of thriving in a season that’s known for draining us. Small, daily choices. 

You get to choose.

Every single day. 

Thriving or draining? ⚖️

The Jesus virtual challenge isn’t limited to 40 days. We designed it to help people learn how to walk with Jesus daily, for a lifetime! To help them integrate faith into real life, real seasons, and real limitations, like winter. 

So if you’re a busy parent who feels confined and exhausted at this time of year, far from God, and waiting for life to start again in the spring, this challenge is meant for you. 🫵

It meets you right here in the dreary fog of winter and gives you a simple, daily structure to build your life into an energized, Christ-fueled powerhouse. 

So instead of waiting for spring to roll around, you can steward this intentional, God-made season with hope and purpose. And then when spring DOES come, you’ll be a totally new person. ✨

Claim Your Spot in the Virtual Jesus Challenge