It’s my favorite time of year – Fall, and it’s a good time to reflect.
I noticed today what a beautiful day it was. The sun was out, the sky was bright blue with a few fluffy white clouds, the grass was bright green along with the fully green trees.
I took it all in and appreciated God’s creation.
The Fall season is here. Personally, Fall is my favorite season. I love the weather as the temperatures start to cool down and the leaves turn bright colors. Soon, Fall will be in full swing.
I started to think about the seasons. Spring is a time of new life and growth. It is fitting that Easter falls into this time of year.
However, before the plants, flowers, and leaves are able to grow in the Spring, they must first die in the Fall and Winter seasons.
As I thought about the seasons, I began to think about how they related to our spiritual lives as well. The same concepts apply.
It is only when we die to ourselves and our ‘fleshly nature’, as Saint Paul calls it, is when we can rise in new life with Christ.
It is with this same concept that we observe the liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent. These times are to prepare us spiritually for the celebrations of Christmas and Easter.
Just as the trees lose their old leaves in the Fall, we can work on getting rid of those things that are ‘old ways’ in us.
“…put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” – Ephesians 4:22-24.
Then the Winter hits and the trees go through a period of time of being stripped down and bare. They are preparing for a season full of new life in the Spring.
After we have gone through the “letting everything go” phase, it is these times that we are preparing ourselves to be completely filled with good things.
We may go through a period of time that feels barren, desolate, dry and cold. If your climate is anything like ours in Ohio, you wonder when the Winter is going to finally end! It feels like it goes on forever.
We can feel like that as well in our spiritual lives. Sometimes we may feel a dryness; maybe even feel like God isn’t listening to us.
When it is God’s time and we are ready, new life will grow within us. “Surely, I wait for the LORD; who bends down to me and hears my cry, draws me up from the pit of destruction, out of the muddy clay, sets my feet upon rock, steadies my steps, and puts a new song in my mouth, a hymn to our God.” – Psalm 40:2-4.
It is with this same idea, that God led the Israelites through the desert for 40 years after He led them out of captivity in Egypt. After the Israelites had spent so much time in Egypt, they had adopted some of the customs of the Egyptians. God used their time wandering in the desert to strip them of these ways and to return them to His ways.
We, too, can be captives of something in our lives that can put a barrier between us and God. It is in these times that we may need to be led into our own “desert”. Let God strip us down to release us from the captivity of the things that we unnecessarily hold onto that are keeping us from Him.
After we let go, we have a clean slate that is open for what God has to give to us. “..So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation” – 2 Corinthians 5:17-18.
So during this Fall season, think about some ways that you can ‘die to yourself’ to grow in holiness.
What are some things holding you back from growing spiritually? What are the barriers we’ve created that are preventing us from growing closer to God?
Let these things fall away. God desires us and wants us to be free of these things so that we can be fully connected to Him.
As we start to see the leaves fall from the trees, let it be a reminder to let go of the things that keep us from being close to God.
Just as the scales fell from the eyes of Saint Paul, let our “scales” fall like the leaves so that we may see more clearly as well.
When the Spring arrives, we will be ready for new growth and be able to have a full and abundant life, as God intends for us.