“For everything there is a season” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Call if “fall” or call it “autumn,” we’ve entered a season of spiritual insights, if only we’ll pause and ponder. For us blessed to live with four seasons… Whoa, Dale! Blessed to endure the biting cold of winter? The oppressive heat of summer? Yes, every season has lessons for us. “This is my Father’s world / And to my listening ears / All nature sings and round me rings / The music of the spheres.” “For everything there is a season, a time to be born,” spring, “and a time to die” Fall shows us leaves and flowers at their most beautiful time, mature…and close to their destined end. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8).
“Let them praise the name of the Lord! For he commanded and they were created. And he established them forever and ever; he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away. Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds! Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and maidens together, old men and children! Let them praise the name of the Lord” (Psalm 148: 1, 5-13).
The faith given us leads to introspection; we sense a message in the changes of fall. “In the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers” (Psalm 90:6). “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). I haven’t the slightest feeling of what heaven will be like but as my years mature… Aren’t gray hairs like the changing leaves?... As life winds down, each colorful leaf, each pumpkin and shock of corn, each cooler day to put on warmer clothes in which to snuggle… these little things of changing seasons are more precious as the years go by. Nature calls us, nature’s God calls us to reject the vanities of the world and stand in awe before the Creator and Recreator of life. “Earth’s crammed with heaven / And every common bush afire with God: / But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, / The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries.” (Elizabeth Barret Browning, “Aurora Leigh”).
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