Good afternoon, friends. This is Pastor Don. Fall is such a striking and stunningly beautiful time of the year! We all watch in amazement as the leaves on the various trees around us begin to put on this display of colors that daily paint and repaint the landscape with every conceivable shade of green, yellow, orange and red. It’s like we are in a theater in the round every day!
What we seldom think about is that nature is not so concerned about our love of beautiful color. Instead, it is quietly doing what is required in order to manage and prepare for the stress of another growing season that will come in the Spring. It knows that unless it renews its strength and enhances its root system, it cannot expect to grow when the time comes. And, if it doesn’t grow, it will die. The leaf display is just a part of that process.
Maybe it’s not as colorful or dramatic as a tree, but our own system of preparation for continued growth also requires time for quietly strengthening the inner resources deep in our spirits. Silently, we must take time for the Creator to renew and deepen our soul’s grounding and connections. We need occasionally to withdraw from busyness and instead of DOING, just BE for a while.
Those are times to reassess our priorities, check out values and how we are actually living out those values, and see what needs to be added or dropped from our commitments.
Perhaps your spiritual life is entering its own kind of Fall and Winter. It can be a beautiful time of renewal and re-energizing.
Let’s Pray: With the Psalmist we ask you, O God to: Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me Ps. 51:10
