Falling Leaves

Today has been a day filled with the journey of many, many leaves leaving their lofty limbs for the death below.  Back in the early Spring these brown pecan leaves were tiny green buds filling themselves with life and now with the pecans ready to fall, their work is done.  As I knelt picking up the falling pecans, I found myself in a swirl of falling brown leaves and was reminded of two things.  One was the word, "abandonment"  and the other was a word of Jesus.  John 12:24 records that word which says, "...unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies, it bears much fruit."      

A word often used within evangelical circles to describe the way Christ calls us to live is this word "abandonment."  Of course, we have also watered it down to a more manageable concept.  The leaf turns loose of the branch, falls to the ground knowing not where it will land, and finally disappearing as compost which will provide nurture for the continued growth of the tree.  Here is an image of "abandonment"  which matches the words of Jesus and brings to mind Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote, "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die."  ("The Cost of Discipleship)     

If we can somehow hold the image of the falling leaf with one eye and the words of Jesus in the other, we will come to a place of understanding how far we often fall short of who Christ is calling us to be. It is easy for most of us to say in the beginning that we follow Christ wherever He leads and that we will even die for Him, but there is this disconnect between those enthusiastic words of beginning and the way we end up living out the life we are called to live.  Most of us are not yet ready to go to know-not- where which is the kind of abandonment Christ calls us.