I was in a hurry to meet a friend for lunch today when I noticed a pretty brown leaf in the parking lot near my car. Once the leaves fall and become brown, it sinks in more that autumn has truly arrived. As autumn is my favorite, I naturally love seeing leaves scattered on the ground.
Initially, I took the photo because the leaf looked beautiful to me. The different colors coupled with the crinkling edges seemed raw and pure and somehow striking. However, that’s not why I chose to post about that leaf today.
It struck me that, although the leaf looked beautiful to me, it is dying or even already completely dead. It has become disconnected with its tree, its source of life, and its cells can no longer continue to survive. Despite an outward beauty, it is dying inside. This reminded me of two things which are important to remember.
First, the leaf looked nice but was actually slowly decaying. Similarly, just because someone appears to be doing okay from an outside perspective, it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have internal struggles. We can’t fully know what anyone else has gone, or is going, through and we should do our best to pursue kindness. Similarly, just because someone appears to be a “nice” or “good” person, it does not mean that he truly harbors a goodwill toward others or that he possesses a gentle, loving soul. Appearances can be deceiving in many ways and that was my first reminder from the leaf today.
The second reminder was about something much deeper and even more important. The moment the leaf broke away from the tree, it began to die. Perhaps it even started dying while it was still attached, but just barely holding on, ready to let go at any moment. The same thing happens to us when we detach ourselves from Jesus, the only source of eternal life with our Heavenly Father.
This caused me to reflect on John 15, and especially verses 5-8, in which Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
As leaves are only fully alive when they are attached to the tree, or branches when they are attached to the vine, so we are only fully alive when we are living in Jesus Christ. With Him, we bear much fruit whereas without Him, we can do nothing. We will wither and be burned. The difference is night and day, and probably even more extreme than that!
The merciful and wonderful difference is that, even if we are currently detached from our Savior, we have the opportunity to attach (or reattach) to Him, whereas once a leaf disconnects from its tree, it is truly doomed to die.
If you were a leaf, do you think you would find yourself attached to the Tree? Thriving and green and fully alive? Or would you be a little off-color, perhaps half-attached, at a risk of breaking off soon? Or are you completely detached and on the ground, brown and slowly dying as your soul begins to crinkle and rot?
We can all become healthier leaves, growing more secured and more alive in our life-giving Tree, in Jesus. Ask Him to help you. There is room for us all in His glorious canopy.
Philippians 2:13, HLC
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