By Doug Creamer
Last Friday I worked at getting up the leaves from my yard. My preferred method is to use my lawnmower and bag the leaves. I like to collect them and put them in my garden to enrich the soil. I worked for a couple of hours getting the leaves up. I went inside and got a glass of tea and relaxed, feeling that wonderful sense of accomplishment.
I looked out the window a few hours later to bask in my accomplishment, only to discover that my yard was covered in leaves again. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The wind had blown a whole new group of leaves down. The new leaves will have to wait until next week.
On Saturday I got some pansies and violas from the local garden center and worked on planting them in our planters. My wife and I like to see things blooming. In the middle of the bleak winter we can go outside and enjoy these wonderful flowering treasures. While I was busy planting them I watched my neighbors working hard to collect their leaves. They created a huge pile in front of their homes. The next morning there was a whole new crop of leaves waiting for them, too.
Some fall chores, like getting the leaves up and cleaning the gutters, have to be done multiple times during the season. I guess in some ways it is similar to pulling weeds. As soon as you finish there will be a whole new crop waiting for you. So we go out and do these chores over again as often as it needs doing. It seems to me that leaf collecting persists into early January.
I was thinking about how the Lord works hard at teaching us lessons. Some lessons we are bound to repeat over and over again, like getting up the leaves. Some lessons in our spiritual walks come easy and we learn them quickly. But if you are like me, some of life’s lessons take a few times through to actually learn. I think about forgiving myself when I stumble and fall. I find it much easier to forgive others than to forgive myself. So God brings that lesson to my attention again until it finally sinks in.
God wants us to learn and grow in our spiritual lives. The only way to grow is through lessons. Being a teacher, I work on ways to construct lessons so my students will grasp the concepts and grow. My lesson starts with a solid foundation and then pushes them. God does the same thing with us. He looks at our lives and picks an area that needs improvement… we all have plenty of those areas. Then he designs a lesson to drive the point home.
This year God has been working on teaching me how important exercise is in my life. I have always been an active person but can become inactive in the extreme heat of summer and on the coldest winter days. I am content with waiting for better weather. My doctor talked with me this year about the benefits of walking. He told me that walking has physical, mental and spiritual benefits. Walking gives me the opportunity to think and process things as well as the opportunity to talk with my Heavenly Father.
When my allergies kicked up in October I stopped walking. I hardly had the energy to walk to the kitchen to eat. When my allergies quieted back down I did not return to my walking routine. It’s easy to stop good habits. I was busy with other things; I didn’t have time to walk. The trouble is I could see physical, mental, and spiritual declines in my life. I couldn’t figure out why. God was trying to whisper the answer but I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t walking, thinking, or praying like I should have been. Lessons!
I want to encourage you to continue working on the lessons God is working on in your life. He is there knocking on the door of your heart, wanting to help you learn your lessons. I know it requires work, but the benefit is that He will help you because He is trying to mold you into the image of His Son. If you are still struggling with the same lesson over and over again, don’t worry, He will be patient with you. He sees great potential in your life and wants to bring out the good things He has stored up in you. You will pass the test soon enough because He is helping you to overcome and succeed.
Contact Doug Creamer at PO Box 777, Faith, NC 28041or doug@dougcreamer.com
