Leaves

Read a devotional that I thought I would share by Marybeth Whalen:

Mark 8:35
"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it."

When my daughter asked me one day why the leaves change color, I scanned the recesses of my brain for this most basic of elementary science fact. But there was nothing there. I patted my daughter and assured her, yet again, we would learn this answer together. We read a book together on why leaves change color. The leaves are slowly dying, they hold onto the tree loosening a bit more every day. The more they detach, the more a substance within them called chlorophyll dissipates. Chlorophyll is green in color, which causes the whole leaf to appear green. But when the chlorophyll is gone, other colors have a chance to surface. The red, gold, and orange colors were within the leaf along-they were just overshadowed by the presence of the green chlorophyll. It took the process of dying for their glorious colors to be displayed. We are in the process of dying every day just like those leaves. When we choose to follow Christ, He asks us to take up our cross and follow Him, engaging in a daily process of giving up our rights, our pride, ourselves in the name of service, giving and submitting. It is the painful work of death, yet in it we find colors we didn't know were there emerging. Once our sense of self and entitlement overshadowed us, coloring us an eternal-yet common-green. In the dying process, we find that God designed us to be more brilliant and colorful as we surrender our lives to Him. People are drawn to this colorful display. They want to know how they too can break out of their same old green-colored lives and live within this kind of brilliance. In our humanness, we want to cling to the security of the tree- the security of money, family, or the comfort zones of our routines. But God asks us to let go, to trust Him, to die a little more each day. We must trust the dying process and encourage others to do the same, displaying our colors so that people far from Him are drawn to Him, just as He intended.

Hope you are encouraged today!