It’s October, and the yard has a thick carpet of merry-colored leaves. Trees reach their blazing sunshine-clad branches toward a sky too blue to seem real, and if only there would be a hint of chill to welcome back boot-and-scarf time of year everything would be quite perfect.
I can’t walk fast in the fall. It’s like the world is brand new and I have to see it all afresh. Hurrying ruins this God-given moment to just breathe in the new season, and I hate that everyone seems to think green lights are mandatory even during such a time of magnificence.
We take moments of silence at funerals and prayer rallies, but we let life drown out the beautiful moments and the awestriking views. There’s little time for wonder in the 60-mile-per-hour, redlight-greenlight world.
But when I see Mt. Rainier rising like a foaming wave from the eastern horizon, or the clouds brushed pink over the Black Hills to the west, I can’t just go onward in indifference. It’s like the world has a new coat of paint—a thrilling foreshadow of what is to come, when one day this beautiful but burdened Creation is remade into something even more perfect.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”
Revelation 21:1-5a
It is very nice to crunch your way over pretty coloured leaves on a walk through the forest. Autumn is a beautiful time of the year.
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