If leaves could talk

I love this time of year in Oklahoma.  We tend to have extreme temps that bring either a quick end to summer with the cold temps or an extended summer leading into December with no mild season transition. But one thing is for sure...we have awesome sunrises and sunsets each day.

When fall actually comes with all of its colors a blazin', I can't help but be appreciative of the most brilliant display in the trees, the leaves, the flowering mums, the pumpkins as we prepare for the season ahead.

Today I was taking in the color and just praising God that through all the changes, He never does. Our God is so faithful. When I looked at the leaves waving good-bye in the gentle breeze I was just in amazement of the wonder of God.  I lingered a bit with awe at the hand-painted portrait of God's mighty creation. I wanted to enjoy His presence in those moments.  Then the Spirit quickened my spirit to know that really the leaves where just submitting to the Creator's process. He reminded me of what fall really was.

Not only is fall beautiful with a colorful canvas, but it's time of change, of transition, and of relaxing. Fall is a forced rest. As pretty as the leaves are, they will eventually fall on the ground, turn brown and be swiftly blown away by wind to collect in fence corners or just float in the breeze. 

Soon the very leaves that I was looking at would be gone, leaving trees bare, stark and exposed. The naked trunk will be exposed to the weather, the harsh elements, and the north winds full of snow.   This is the growing cycle of the tree. As the tree rests, the fruit of the spring is prepared in the rest or dormant season. It looks like everything is dead, but on the inside there is much growth.

The same growth cycle can happen in our spiritual lives as well. It's a process that happens in our hearts. Fall brings a natural and necessary time of pruning, cleaning or shedding of things that we have allowed in our lives. The process of resting is needed to drop, let go of or simply rest.  We need to prepare for the season ahead.

We know we need this but yet are afraid to enter a rest for fear of being stagnant.

Resting adds great value in letting God produce His fruit in us. There are seasons to bear fruit yes, but there has to be a season to give rest to the process that God uses to bear in us His fruit of the Spirit.

Trust the process. 

How often does time get in the way of letting God develop His gifts in us? Who of you thinks you are running out of time to do what God has called you to do? If you are rushing from idea to idea you are rushing yourself out of God's will with your own agenda and plans versus waiting upon God to develop, renew or rest the gifts He has planted inside of you.

Have you let the fear of productivity get in the way of resting? Don't worry, God knows exactly what He has put inside of you to use for His glory. Do you really think that He would forget that you sing with a heart of pure worship every Sunday from the pew? Or that you encouraged a friend in a way that she needed and have the gift of listening when no one else will? He hasn't forgotten that inspiring message you sent to a missionary either. 

When your desires to please the Father with the gifts that He has placed in your hands don't show up on your blog numbers page are you discouraged? Yeah, me too.

There are so many fears that get in the way of resting.

What really gets in the way is our need to feel man's approval instead of trusting God with the gifts He so lovingly placed in the appropriate seasons. Oh if only the leaves could talk and tell you that they are ready to rest.

It's been a long dry summer and that really is the result of a enduring season on limited water supplies, and hot summer winds brushing by. And it's been one that has taught patience and perseverance. So even though the resting feels unproductive, the pruning seems to fit awkward, or the letting go seems unwarranted, we have to trust the process of how God has laid out in our seasons of growth.

What we can relentlessly pursue and agree with is that God's processes are always faithful and fruitful, timely and perfectly planned, in season and out.  " I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn't produce fruit and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me." John 15:1-4

Trust the rest process. Change brings growth, seasons change. Growth brings change. Change brings much needed rest. Keep pursuing God, let God pursue you. Allow Him to paint a new portrait on your canvas. Let go of your “leaves” with hopes of getting new brilliant fruit. God wants to do a new work in you. Will you let Him?

Our lives are the most beautiful when we are submitted to God's processes in any season.

Can You Give God Five Minutes? {Fall}

I love fall.  I love the glorious colors that emerge from trees that will soon transition to rest.  

I love the gentle flow of the leaves as they fall.  I could sit for hours.

It's peaceful here God in your Presence.  Why do I leave?

The fall leaves remind me of change, glorious changes and changes that glorify you Father.

What changes have you experienced over this wonderfully dry summer?

I wish you could look at my heart...you would see those spiritual stretch marks that only a mother could see... of God's work, His expansion...making room for Him.  

I am not who I was.

I am glowing...I am shining His love.

I have joy.  

...in your rest...God, as I look as the fallen leaves. Time alone with You is good.  Thank you for letting me touch your face.  Your soft and gentle touch soothes.

God you are Holy, you are good.  
None compares...all over the earth.  
Not even the beauty seen in your creation.  God I am ever so grateful that you don't compare me with others.  
Thank you for the eyes of love in which you see my fall colored patterns, uniquely as Your bold display.

I am so humbled by your Awesomeness...God... 
I love you more than I can speak.  
More than the rustling wind, 
the explosion of creation,
the fruit box on which I sit, 
or that next plate of cookies.  
God..you are Holy...and Awesome...and mighty in this fallen place.  
My heart falls in worship Jesus.  
All glory is given to you, one who lives in the Highest...in this newly formed and fallen heart.  Thank you for giving me Your Daily Bread.  Thank you that you love me so...wow!

\o/  God, you are enough...for me...in this new season of quiet rest with you.  You are...

I am speechless...It feels like there is not enough praise inside of me...\o/ 

Painted Ponies

Painted Ponies

I love fall and this county fair time of year.  It's a tradition with my daughter and I that we make the annual trek, even though we both know we won't see anything new.  We arrived at the fairgrounds and we were greeted with the usual hustle and bustle.  We looked and laughed at the entries.  We like to judge them ourselves.  If I were a fair judge, would hand out different awards and ribbons to the most precious of entries.  We saw livestock and showpieces and those who had tendered their care.  We saw it all and gave our opinions to each other.

We even walked carnival row and allowed the barkers to shout.  "Come here...it's only a dollar!" for whatever game they were selling.  I never bought into those games.  We shared the traditional funnel cake treat.  Oh...those are so deliciously bad for you.  We judged ourselves for taking part in that fare.

With powdered sugar still on my face, I looked up to see the most striking exhibit.  It was a carnival worker at the kids merry-go-round.  The painted ponies were spinning fast but my gaze stopped and locked onto one the workers.  She was very overweight.  She had just gotten her a plate of some kind of cheesy-mounded-goodness with the biggest thermos mug-full of Mountain Dew a Quick Trip store could sell.  She knelt down on the dry ground at the edge of her work space to eat.  I had to look away.  

But then I looked back and immediately tears started to stream.  God spoke to my heart in that moment and said..."See what happens when you open your life to food idols?"  Ouch!  He reminded me that I had slowly shifted away in my obedience of eating right and I had let food be more important than it should have been.  And as the painted pony worker powered down her unhealthy meal, God painted a warning that I will always remember.  

Many plates later....

Oh my wayward heart.....God once again brought this whole scene back to my mind, and today I have to tell you that I have fallen under the subtle romance of food...again.  I have taken a ride on a painted pony on the unhealthy merry-go-round of food.  I am ashamed to write this but it's true.  And maybe this is where the healing begins.  Again.  I can only say that I have allowed it for comfort and pleasure.  

Now I am judging myself.  I tend to easily dismiss my own food sin.  And when I talk about some "dark" places in my heart...food is always there lurking in the corners leaving crumbs of desires.  Can I just tell you now that I've opened the door to allow God's love and light to enter in?  

Yes, this really goes that deep for me.  

I am tired of riding this spinning painted-pony ride, up and down, on this merry-go-round of health and fitness.  No more barely gripping on to the good benefits of eating right just sometimes.   I guess you could call this my "thorn". 

I want to start caring again.  

"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.  But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these...from your lips."  Colossians 3:5, 7-8

There is freedom in your discovery of whatever sin or thorn you might have in your life.   Is there anything that causes you to slowly spin away from God?  Is there something you want to ignore and dismiss because it's not that bad?

Do you know that God wants so much more for us?  

What I have found in my declaration of my weakness is my need for more dependence on God.  In my dependence on God, comes the of independence of whatever sin is weighing me down.  That's freedom at it's finest.  That's God at work, and that's my best life off of sin's painted-pony-merry-go-rounds.  

What sin do you need to let go of?  I've told you one of mine...