There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven. ... God has made everything beautiful for its own time. (Ecclesiastes 3:1,11)

    I don’t have much experience with autumn. My wife grew up on southern Ohio. She insists that we don’t have autumn in Texas. We just have fall. One day it’s 85 degrees; two nights later it’s 22. On the third day, all the leaves fall off the trees. That’s fall. Then it’s winter.

    Over Thanksgiving this year, we got away to the mountains and forests of north-central Arkansas. We experienced the glory of late autumn. On the southern faces of the hillsides were bold splashes of color as oranges, yellows, and browns highlighted the constant greens of the pine trees. Dying leaves danced in the breeze as they floated to the forest floor or clattered in the wind as they hung on to their lofty perches for another day. The crisp air of the night met the warm waters of lake or stream and an otherworldly fog hung on the surface as the morning light angled its first rays of filtered light. It was glorious autumn!

    In a week or two, the leaves will all be gone. Winter will have descended. Cold will have conquered. The trees will be bare. Yet for us, on this late November weekend, the dying life of autumn was alive with color, hue, clatter, shadow, breeze, and reflection.

So much of our life’s color and vibrancy could found in the autumn of life.

    So much of our culture, of our modern marketing, is focused on the vibrancy of youth. Even when the reality of aging knocks on our door, we seek to put it off or pretend it is not there. We cover it up. We deny its presence. We nip, tuck, and stretch away its landmarks. We hang on to the illusions of our own youth, to our own loss. Then suddenly, fall descends. No autumn, just the ragged and harsh wind of fall. Then it’s winter.

    It seems to me that so much of our life’s color and vibrancy could found in the autumn of life. Children are grown. Opportunity for deeper relationships with our spouse and friends are present. Experience and faithfulness have opened the door for greater wisdom, influence, and contribution. Before the cold of winter comes, we could spend our energies in service to the King and the Kingdom rather than spending them on the pretensions that we are still in the flush of youth. After all, transformation should lead us to a greater and more glorious reflection of our Savior and not the return of some simmering adolescent narcissism.

    We cannot prevent our aging any more than we can prevent the colored leaves of autumn from letting go of their lofty perches and fluttering down to their winter home on the brown forest floor. We can, however, color life with all its vibrant hues as we let the Lord’s glory show forth in the changes of life and the commitment to be alive to his glory in whatever age we find ourselves.

Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, he gives freedom. And all of us have had that veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord. And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)