Changing Seasons

As I look out my window, I am amazed at the difference a few weeks make in what I see. Just a few weeks ago the trees were covered with orange, yellow, red and brown leaves. Some were rust colored, and a few were even silvery gold. Now, except for the evergreen trees, the leaves have fallen and the branches stand out starkly against the blue-gray sky. Yet, when I look out my front window, I see my huge Bradford Pear with its yellow leaves still clinging to its branches, refusing to let go and let the Winter take over, still trying to hold on to the warmer months.

How many of us are like those leaves, still clinging to our past lives, to things not of Christ. When we turn our lives to Him we tend to hang on to some of the things that we knew, the things that held us at arms length from Him in the first place. We want to change, but we want to cling to some semblance of our past, not letting go, but grasping to what we know. It is so hard to let go and let the future of our spiritual lives take complete hold.

In Colossians we read, “⁵ Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶ Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. ⁷ You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. ⁸ But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ⁹ Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” Col. 3:5-10.

Isn’t it time that we give ourselves fully to Christ, finally shedding ourselves of the things that drag us down or tie us to this fleshly world? Isn’t it time for the leaves to fall?