FLEETING GOLD

 A few weeks ago, green leaves on my neighbor's willow tree swung in the breeze. Then, almost overnight (it seemed), they yellowed, then flicked off the branches to cover her lawn and roof, causing quite a cleanup chore. A few found their way over the fence to my lawn. I don't mind raking them up, savoring this harbinger of the “changing of the seasons.” Sometimes the scattered leaves remind me of a classic poem, Spring's first green is gold—which, the poet Robert Frost added, is “its hardest hue to hold.”

Frost took a phenomenon of nature (for one, how the first spring blooms of a willow are actually yellow before maturing into leaves) to build a quiet symbolism of life's transitions—when those green leaves turn golden again in fall and drop. And every fall, watching this happen, I remember Frost's veiled message of life's transience.

Then I open my Bible. The apostle Paul was no “Frost,” but he wrote some things that blossom in amazing ways. One is the doxology he quoted as part of his letter to the Ephesians. It followed a section in the letter that pushed the saints to consider the incomprehensible dimensions of the love of Christ: its “width and length and depth and height” (Ephesians 3:18). One thing I never noticed about the verse (until reading this is a commentary) was how Paul used a pyramid construction to list the superlatives of God's blessings. In some ways, it's shaped like a tree with an apex at top and broader limbs on the ground. Paul wrote that God is:

Able

Able to do

Able to do what we ask

Able to do what we think

Able to do what we ask or think

Able to do all that we ask or think

Able to do abundantly above all that we ask or think

Able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think

according to

the power

that works in us.

This growth in spiritual character is the work of His Holy Spirit in us. He shows us our sin, helps us turn to prayer and confession, teaches us to worship, and brings opportunities to “bear fruit” through service to God.

Our time to do so is brief—so brief. It's so easy to sit in the soil and doing ordinary “living things,” yet failing to see the bigger purpose of life on earth. As the Westminster confession puts it: “Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” Our years to do so are limited. Even willow trees eventually die after years of their green-to-gold seasonal cycle. But notice the verse's “trunk” in this illustration: “According to the power that works in us.” It's our roots, reaching deep into the soil of God's love, seeking to “bloom” and serve as He intended. Because...HE is able.

JUST DROPPING IN....

I learned a new word today: hydrophobicity. It's defined as “the physical property of a molecule that is seemingly repelled from a mass of water.” For a quickie illustration, check out plant leaves after a heavy dew, watering, or rain shower—like this photo of rose leaves. I find that when I slow down to just observe, I have the reminders of an amazing, inscrutable Creator who included such beauty for me to enjoy. Thus, I see transient diamonds right there in my front yard, quivering on a velvet bed.

Okay, if you're a scientist, you're thinking of an attribute of molecules that takes many words to explain. But I'm satisfied with just seeing beauty in the ordinary, little reminders to worship the Creator, whose handiwork has mandated centuries of awe-filled study.

Sometimes, life grinds on at such a pace that I forget to pause and just look. Reflect. Be in awe. Scripture says the heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth shows His handiwork (Psalm 19:1). I'm learning to look, listen, linger. One night the sunset cast such a brilliant orange on the horizon that I couldn't keep from sharing it. I called a close friend and said, “Quick, look out the window at the sunset,” then hung up. The color didn't last long, but she called back and thanked me for alerting her to it. To my surprise, she later gave me a photo print of that sky. She'd grabbed her camera for an “image” that lasted longer than a few minutes. I have it on my refrigerator along with coupons and photos of my grandchildren.

A much quoted thinker of the 1800s once said, “All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.” I hesitate somewhat to use this quote—by Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose theology wandered into Eastern religions outside Christianity—but I think it says what he probably didn't intend. It's this: that the heavens and earth are so amazing, so diverse, to interconnected, so beautiful—well, the “so's” can go on and on—that failure to consider their Creator is a travesty.

It is so right that the Bible's first words are: “In the beginning God created....” Not, "God called together a committee to plan this project.” God created. And His decision after creating beauty was to create people to enjoy it.

Of course, we know the Genesis story went sour...and so here we are. But God's Big Story will come to an ending chapter of magnificent redemption. In the meantime, I savor the reminders of His perfect creation, His delightful delicacies of plant and water, His gifts right in front of me—if I just stop and look.

So what if we name it “hydrophobicity.” I call it a fingerprint of the Creator.