As I walked in the park Saturday, I noticed the leaves beginning to show signs of changing colors. The trees aren’t fully red and yellow just yet, but they’re changing. And I thought about how much joy I find in watching the leaves change and the vibrant colors bursting forth from trees that were just days before green and still growing. It’s one of the things I most look forward to as fall arrives. As I was admiring the beginning of the leaves changing and anticipating how beautiful they were going to be in about a week, it occurred to me what this process is. It’s death. And yet I find so much joy in watching this death. I find joy in watching the leaves change colors and then fall off, blanketing the ground with autumn’s hues. Death. But this death is necessary in order for the birth that awaits the spring. In the spring after the trees have been barren for months, tiny buds begin to sprout from bare branches and then blossom into leaves a shade of green that does not see the arrival of summer. That new, virgin green that remains for just a little while before maturing into a deep green that canopies yards.
This death that is so beautiful to witness and leads to new life and renewal is much like the death Jesus calls us to – death to ourselves. Death to ourselves leads to new life in Christ. A life rich in beauty and pain. And even though dying to ourselves hurts, it’s changing us and molding us and shaping us into Christ’s image, which is alive, instead of something that we possess, which is dead.
“He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:30
I have to imagine that if this process of leaves changing and dying brings me so much joy in the watching, how much joy does our process of changing and dying bring to Jesus as we become more like Him?
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Beautifully Broken 