Autumn is my favorite season.
I don’t like summer, and I look forward to “sweater weather.” As a kid, I eagerly joined in the school clothes-shopping ritual, determined to out-do my classmates with the latest fashions. In the 1980s, the preppie look dominated the halls of my junior and senior high schools, and I rode the peer pressure bandwagon along with everyone else.
Autumn symbolized renewal and rebirth, a respite from a boring, hot summer, a chance to start over and do things right. With new books and a new look, my friends and I resolved to make the grade and rule the school.
I still think that way, but on a more mature level, of course. For me, autumn still symbolizes renewal and rebirth, but it has less to do with outward appearances and more with spiritual growth and what I want to accomplish in my life.
Even as trees shed their dying leaves, harvest season holds the promise of abundance. A seed well-sown can reap the blessing of plenty. As long as we’re alive, the cycle of life continues. (This cycle of life is one reason I don’t understand why people suffer from long-term depression. As long as you’re alive, I used to tell people, you have a chance to improve your life, to start over, to try again.)
We shed our dying ideas and dreams for something new and different. We learn from our mistakes and leave the past behind. We begin again, preparing ourselves for the growing season, sowing our fields and tilling the soil, nurturing an idea or a goal until its time has come to be fulfilled or achieved. That’s an earth-bound harvest. But the spiritual one is much more important.
The Bible speaks of spiritual sowing, reaping, and harvesting. Being born again in Christ is a renewal and rebirth. The “old man” is shed for the “new man” in Christ. God warns us that he “who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” (Galatians 6: 7-10)
Indeed, the final harvest will take place at Christ’s return. At that time, the earth will be ripe for judgment. What each of us has sown, so shall we reap. (Revelation 14)
God promises that the believer will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Our earthly mandate is to spread the Gospel and make disciples of all men, not just exist, sleepwalking through one season to the next.
Christians, whatever you believe you were called to do and you know you’re not fulfilling that purpose, this autumn season is an opportunity to renew yourselves and claim your spiritual rebirth.
