Fall Leaves

The leaves in upstate NY where I recently visited my folks have already been through their glorious rampage of color and the trees are half denuded of foliage.  Here in my home state of NC, the leaves are only just beginning to think about changing color.  In approaching winter, the North has us beat by a month! But in approaching summer, the tides will turn. We will be slathering suntan lotion on bare arms long before the Northerners have packed away their long-Johns. 

I was thinking about "timing" while sitting in a church membership class yesterday. Some of us come to faith at an early age, and spend our whole life basking in the glow of the knowledge of God. Others will reach the last strand of the frayed rope of life, and just before it snaps, will proclaim faith in Jesus and be ushered into God's kingdom. Both will arrive, but the timing of their journey will be very different.

I had a discussion recently with a man who was born into a believing family, and he can't remember a time when he did not walk with God. I had a dramatic conversion experience at age 29. I have many regrets and often wonder if I would have had less remorse to fill my heart had I known God from my youth. My friend, the lifelong believer, told me he envied me! What!?

He told me that he didn't have a dramatic pre-God life that then was cataclysmically different from his post-God life. Because I could see the startling change in my perceptions and actions, he felt that I was fortunate. I knew beyond any doubt that life without God was not worth living. He knew that too, but in a subtler way. What astonished me was that his "family verse" was the same as ours- Joshua 24:15 - "as for me and my house, we will serve The Lord." 

Some leaves turn brilliant early in the season, some late. Some just crackle and turn brown, clinging to limbs through which no nourishing sap flows. Those are the leaves that make me want to weep.

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“So fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord alone. But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:14, 15 NLT)

You will remember your ways, and be ashamed when I forgive you all that you have done, says the Lord God. Ezekiel 16:61,63

Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Romans 2:4