Dying Leaves.....Dying Life

Luke 9:24-25
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it....
But whoever loses his life for My sake will save it...
For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?

Galatians 6:14
But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Leaves.....
Falling leaves.....
Falling leaves piling up in my yard....
Each year I fight the great "leaf" battle here on Greene Street.
The trees shed their leaves until they stand like crooked sticks bare to the sky.
All part of life I guess.
They fall..........I rake..........they fall..........I rake.
It is also all part of the process of dying so life can return next spring.
The trees shed themselves of these leaves so that over the winter months the buds for next spring are being prepared. 

In order for new life to come next spring there is a dying of the old life. The leaves are evidence of the passing of one life so the new one can come out next year.
Kind of like recovery isn't it?
The passing of one life so we can embrace the new one that is going to blossom and bud out.
All part of a process....
The old has to fall away to make room for the new. The two cannot coexist in the same body...this old life and the coming new one.
Isn't it funny how we find such value in that old life.....
Of course whatever value we may ascribe to the old life is based on our flesh or what some refer to as our "sin nature"....the dark desires of our hearts that affect the way we think and make decisions. Such must become like those falling leaves....it must be replaced by a new way of thinking and living. This can only come about when we allow God to change our hearts.

Funny part in all this process of the tree shedding its leaves so new ones can come out next spring is that at the height of winter the trees all look dead. Barren.....crooked...you can see every knot and branch clearly. The tree has been exposed. Isn't that just like God? He helps us to shed everything of old life. There we are......completely exposed.....for everyone to see...
Yet we don't realize that inside of us (like those barren trees) is new life that will come forth in due time. Our desire is that the new life push out the old life and voila' ....we are covered with new leaves. Doesn't happen that way. God takes our old life all the way down to the core. He begins to rebuild our old character....removing all the dead leaves, so that we can produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25).  Isn't that a process? The bearing of fruit? Sure it is. The fruit tree loses its leaves in the fall.....they come back in the spring....once the leaves are out then the tree produces fruit.  The fruit of God's Holy Spirit is manifested or revealed in our life when cooperate and let Him remove our character defects (STEP #6).

So what's all this "Falling Leaves" stuff about?
Don't be discouraged in your recovery walk....
Don't be alarmed when the old life begins to fall away and you are exposed for the world to see....
New life is being formed within you.
New life and new character that will come forth in God's time.
You can bank on that...

God on you...
mbb