That’s not death…. just fall
Recently I’ve been a pastor for around 13 years. If that sounds like a long time, well it is. Especially when you believe that your entire destiny is to be found in a certain occupation career or place in life. Yet there are moments like these where you are encouraged to move into another phase. One that involves the risk of building a business and continuing to forge relationships. There is a place that I have mourned the death of the past expectations, yet old dreams have to die so that new ones can live.
Living in and around Chicago has taught me the necessity of the seasons. People flock to the warm coasts to experience the temperate weather of places like California and Florida and while there are spots that are temperate and some scorching in the summer, still it is the place to be when Spring Break rolls around. It also seems to be the place where Charismatic churches thrive, but that’s a story for another time. In Chicago, it is the dramatic turn of the seasons that produce thankfulness for spring and dramatic colors of fall. The seasons don’t work if we are always looking at what we’ve lost. Fall is a death of sorts as world feels like it is going into hibernation and we are losing all of the moments that we have built over the summer. What is actually happening is we are being regenerated and this death is only temporary yet full of promise.
This is the way we find that transition and change will not kill us. We must return after transition with a new vigor for life and ready to try new ides. We must ensure that the waiting increases the excellence not the frustration. This is a path that finds opportunity in every obstacle, momentum in every moment and healing in every hardship. It is there for us as long as we trust God and remember it’s just fall and leaves just fall, but they will return to the trees after all.
