The Crown of Glory

 

The crown of glory – stunning red leaves on the acer tree – is beginning to drop. Red leaves lie on the spent vegetable patch. Their moment has passed, but maybe now that their beauty has gone, their value will be more enhanced than ever. What they have been will break down and enrich the soil, preparing it to nurture the next season.

God is doing a new thing in his church in this season. His church is not buildings and walls; it is people building bridges to each other and into a hurting world. What has gone before has, at times, been glorious, and now, if we work with Him, it can nurture a future church which is more alive than ever, more generous in its love, more gracious in its compassion and mercy, more forgiving in its attitudes.

This is some of what God showed me when I lingered with him yesterday. Surely time well-spent.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him today, watching carefully so you don’t miss the bruised reeds he’s drawing you to comfort, the broken hearts he’s calling you to encourage.

This is the day he has made, and he goes through it with each one of us. Closer than we imagine.