Pat Mingarelli
[Originally published as Lessons from Autumn’s Drifting Leaves: Why Your Life Has Greater Purpose in Christ]
Spiritual Thoughts About Drifting Leaves
One of the many things I like about autumn is watching the drifting leaves fall to the ground. There’s something about watching them gently float downward through the air that creates a peaceful feeling. Then, I like to photograph them after they land on the ground. I tend to shoot the leaves precisely where they fell. I don’t like to move them. Somehow, I’m attracted to how they naturally and randomly settle on the ground.
I also like to photograph those last lonely, colorless leaves that are clinging to the trees before they fall. Those final, tenatious leaves make me think about the brevity and sacrifice of life. Time passes away from all of us. Eventually, even those lingering leaves will break away and drift to the ground.
Pondering the drifting leaves makes me think deeply about life.
Are we like these drifting leaves, or is there more to us? Are we just clinging to empty longings, only to eventually be carried off by the wind with no control over our destiny? Do we drift, and eventually land somewhere with a bunch of others who, just like us fell and drifted with the winds of life?
More than Drifting Leaves
Falling leaves are helpessly carried wherever the wind takes them, and land in the dirt wherever the wind drops them.
As followers of Christ, there’s more to our lives than being carried off by a mindless wind. As God’s children, made in His image, He has given us a purpose in life. He made all people as moral beings with a free will. We can choose to fill His purpose for our life, or to take a different path — and that ends up being no different than the leaves drifting in the wind.
As God’s children we are created for so much more than drifting. God has given you and everyone else who follows Him a purpose. God calls us to worship Him, to serve Him, and to serve others. He’s given each one of us physical and spiritual gifts that we can use to minster to others.
1 Peter 4:10 says,
As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
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And Ephesians 2:10 says,
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
Additionally Romans 12:6-8 says,
Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
Find Purpose in Christ
We find our purpose in Christ. The more time we spend with God reading the Bible, worshiping Him, walking with Him and praying to Him, the more we will find ourselves fulfilling the purpose He has for us. If we don’t spend time with God in His Word and in prayer, we will have trouble discovering His purpose for us.
Scripture tells us we are more than drifting leaves aimlessly falling from trees. God has called us to so much more. He made each of us for a purpose. When we follow God, we do not land where the wind takes us. But instead, we walk in God and follow where the Holy Spirit leads us.
Spend time with God and in His Word and discover His purpose for you.
