Last of the Autumn Thoughts

A post I wrote a few weeks ago, before leaving Ohio...

I'd rather die like Christ than live like me.
I'd rather live as one without a name than live my life trying to become a name.

It is warm out, despite the wind that rushes to my heart. Yet there's a chilly expectancy in the air. The cold is not far behind. Winter is near.

Fire burns. Just look outside, where the trees are being slowly eaten up by fiery and brilliant colors. Isn't it glorious to watch? Have you ever thought that all this beauty and impossible color combinations are the signs of an intense death? These leaves have such a short life. From buds in the spring, to a short season of young and green, and finally to crunchy dead fibers in the fall.

Somehow it is perfect, though, the way the leaves go out with a bang.

We rejoice each autumn season to see the leaves die (er, to get pumpkin spice lattes and wear scarves again...).

Maybe we should mirror this happiness in dead leaves with a joy in Christ's death. In our own deaths to this world. How glorious it is to die, for everything I thought I owned to fade away, wither, perish beneath the light of the Son. To wrap myself in His glorious light and never return to the garments of the dark.

This autumn has been different than the ones before it. Instead of a flash of lightning and a forest fire that devours the leaves, this year's flame started out small. It grew slowly, crackling leaves into bright colors.

But the leaves refused to die.

They stuck around, their color deepening. A slow death. Red turned to auburn. Yellow turned to gold.

A true test by fire.

Oh, Father, may you test me in the same way. Burn away my lusts and desires till all that's left is a heart willing to do Your will.