A Prayer to Welcome Autumn - Your Daily Prayer - September 22

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A Prayer to Welcome Autumn
By Lynette Kittle

Bible Reading
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”—2 Corinthians 5:17 

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Autumn season where we are spectators in watching the old leave, so that the new may appear. It’s both a time of bittersweet saying goodbye to the beauty of summer and spring, and a sweet time of looking forward to a new year of growth to come, welcoming both a changing loveliness and an approaching dreariness of the days, where exquisite colors and hues fade away to the coming winter’s grays and white.

As autumn rushes in bareness to outdoor plants, trees, and grasses, it does it in such a glorious way, that we often forget what is taking place through the process right before us.

While we’re enjoying the ongoing changing colors and backdrops, the oldness of life is literally being blown away by the wind, passing from vibrant green to various shades of red, orange, golden, and brown, before our very eyes.

Saying Good-bye to Greenery

Beautifully vibrant in the process, God blesses us through the arrays of autumn’s colors, with promises of future lovely, new growth to sprout and spring forth.

Autumn is literally the dying off of spring and summer’s growth. Whereas, seeming like the end of life, God reveals to us through Jesus’ death that dying can lead to new life. 

As the Apostle Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 5:15, Jesus’ death led the way to our receiving new life.  “And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.”

Too, Paul teaches how when we then die to sin, we become alive in God: “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).

So we can take comfort in autumn, enjoying the process, knowing it’s temporary and leads to new life on earth. As 1 Corinthians 4:1 teaches, “This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed.

The First Autumn

We may wonder what the first people to witness autumn thought was taking place. As a new experience, they most likely didn’t know that it was part of the growth process, maybe thinking they would not ever see new growth again.

Although the Bible tells us some things, there are many things, we don’t know this side of heaven, like how Adam and Eve saw and experienced the first autumn on earth.

Perhaps God sat them down and explained what was going to take place next? But with the Fall, came a loss of close relationship with God, so we don’t know how well or how much they communicated after humankind’s sinful fall.

Autumn’s Promise

Jesus’ death brought great sorrow and loss to His followers who, during His death on the cross, didn’t fully comprehend what was to come, even though He told them.

As Jesus explains in Revelation 1:18: “I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

His death, followed by His glorious resurrection from the grave, brought great joy and the promise of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives, so we, too, live on earth filled with the power Jesus exuded. 

As well, God has designed autumn’s promise of new life to come.

Let’s Pray

Dear Father, 

As the old passes away in preparation for the new, encourage my heart to be full and overflowing with the hope of new life.

Comfort me during the autumn process, opening our eyes to see the beauty and peace that comes in dying to the old and looking forward to the new.

Too, God, I ask You to remove old things from inside of me and create a new me, from the inside out. 

Calm any mixed emotions I may experience when seeing the old pass away. Help me to keep in mind how the fading beauty leads to something even more beautiful in this life and the life to come.

Stir new life and new creation within me, as I look forward to the earth’s newness to emerge.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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Photo Credit: Images Plus/Drazen Zigic

Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV.

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