Your Leaves Are Changing

Written by Jarred Rushing

(6 minutes)

Me and my family are vacationing in the Great Smoky Mountains this week. I've heard so many stories of how beautiful the landscape is when the leaves are changing colors, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw yesterday. It was breathtakingly beautiful. The bright red, orange and yellow leaves were painted along the mountainside. Leaves were floating everywhere, gently falling to the ground. I turned to my wife at one point and said, "I feel like I'm in a movie." It was surreal. 

As my head was hitting the pillow last night I started to rehearse the day with Abba, and He whispered a special word to me. 

He said, "Isn't it funny that the most beautiful scenery you've ever witnessed is caused by things falling away? The changing of the leaves and their falling away is beautiful to you; the changing of your thoughts and the old ones falling away is beautiful to Me."

I caught a glimpse of Abba's heart in that moment and I immediately felt His delight over our Kingdom family at The Wilderness Place. We're undergoing a great transition, a changing of the leaves, where old mindsets and beliefs are beginning to fall away and drift to the ground. Our hearts are committed to relearning what we thought we already knew. And this change that is happening in us is incredibly beautiful to the Father. 

I want to call our attention to the fact that old mindsets and beliefs falling away can be a difficult and uncomfortable change. Just like the trees in these mountains, what has clothed us and brought us a sense of safety and protection for all these years is thinning out and falling away. And this transition can leave us feeling naked at times. Vulnerable. But would you believe me when I say that you are safer now than you've ever been? As uncomfortable as it is to leave our theological opinions behind, we are being stripped of the old so we can inherit something brand new. 

I found it so interesting that in the sea of changing colors there are some trees, the fir trees, that are showing no signs of change at all. We were teaching the kids as we drove up the mountainside that these fir trees are evergreen, they are not affected at all by the changing seasons. While the others are undergoing significant changes, these trees remain the same. 

I want you to know that this is the brand new thing that we're inheriting. Abba is setting us up to become evergreen. As beloved identity and the revelation of His love permeate the deepest parts of our heart and our minds begin to change, we're becoming Oaks of Righteousness, planted by Living Water.

What delight comes to the one who follows God's ways!
He won't walk in step with the wicked,
nor share the sinner's way,
nor be found sitting in the scorner's seat.
His pleasure and passion is remaining true
to the Word of "I Am,"
meditating day and night in the true revelation of light.
He will be standing firm like a flourishing tree
planted by God's design,
deeply rooted by the brooks of bliss,
bearing fruit in every season of his life. 
He is never dry, never fainting,
ever blessed, ever prosperous.
(Psalm 1:1-3)

Evergreen.

And even though we are in a time of transition, where old things are falling away and the new has not yet fully come, I need you to know something about our Father: He delights in us in every moment. This moment that we are in right now, where we are walking hand in hand together as we relearn everything we thought we already knew about Him, is just as valuable and precious to Him as any other moment. He is a proud Father and He's watching in awe as our leaves are changing and falling away. 

Pastor Tim introduced us to the story of Ruth this past Sunday, and I want you to look again at this profound moment between Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, as Ruth pledges her life to being planted by her mother-in-law's side. 

"When they heard Naomi's words, Orpah and Ruth wailed and sobbed again. Then Orpah embraced and kissed her mother-in-law goodbye and went back home, but Ruth clung tightly to Naomi and refused to let go of her. Naomi said, 'Ruth, listen. Your sister-in-law is going back to Moab to her people and to her gods. Now go with her.' But tearfully, Ruth insisted, 'Please don't ask me again to leave you! I want to go with you and stay with you. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will now be my people, and your God will now be my God. Wherever you die, I will die there, too; that's where your people will bury me - next to you. Nothing but death itself will separate me from you, so help me God!'" (Ruth 1:14-17)

I want you to see that Ruth had the chance to leave and go back to her own people and "her own gods." I think this is significant, because Abba is just as good as Naomi is in that He is unwilling to chain us and drag us into our inheritance. You have the choice to turn around and go back. And some people do. Some people walk away because change and transition is hard. Leaving behind old mindsets and beliefs is hard. Can you imagine the risk that Ruth took in devoting her life to Naomi? At best, the future was unknown. But tethering yourself, a widow, to your older mother-in-law, who is also a widow, was not exactly Ruth "climbing the ladder" of success. It was more like Ruth volunteering to struggle. 

Change and transition is hard. Letting our old theological opinions fall to the ground and wither away is hard. Being vulnerable and open to relearning something you thought you already knew, is hard. Just ask Orpah, the other daughter-in-law. She couldn't do it. 

Do you know what else Orpah couldn't do? 

She couldn't see the face of her kinsman redeemer, like Ruth. Her decision to turn around and go back meant that she was never able to inherit the abundant life that was waiting on her. 

But Ruth was different. Ruth refused to go back to her old way of thinking. She let go of the old and tethered herself to something uncertain, for a season. She locked arms with something that required her to walk by faith, and not by sight. She decided not to rely on what she already knew, but to commit herself to walking with her new family into an unfamiliar land where she had no past knowledge or points of reference. And Abba used her yielded heart to usher her right in to the field of her kinsman redeemer, Boaz. 

I hear Abba's voice speaking the same thing over us that He was probably speaking over Ruth:

"It may not look like it, but you are safer now than you've ever been before. Don't resist My embrace. Allow me to carry you into the place of promise. Trust me, my child."

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Worship: "Learning To Be Loved By You" by Melissa Helser

Honor: Give Online to The Wilderness Place

Share With Us: We would love to hear how you're encountering Abba in your daily walks. Don't hesitate to share what you're hearing, seeing, or sensing in His presence. Email us here!