A lesson from the leaves

It's a cold, drizzly, gray day here, with snow falling in the high country.  Seems like summer was just in its fullness and yet here's the evidence that fall is really upon us!

I looked out the kitchen window this morning and saw that our aspen trees are edged with gold.  Their changing is so subtle, a bit every day, and yet within a few weeks they are transformed into a mass of brilliant gold.  It reminded me of something I've been pondering recently--the concept that most things with God follow the Law of Progression.  We want quick change, immediate answers, instant fruit, but that's just not how He's set it up.

Whether it the need for healing in our bodies, or character issues that cause us to stumble, the building of a business or the discipling of a new believer...it's all progression.  We homeschooling moms are doing this everyday, building precept upon precept, line upon line, academic and spiritual, until one day we see that "it came to pass."  While I am one who wants the immediate (!), nevertheless the stellar miracles are few and far between.  The Lord seems to be always aiming at the process part of it.  And at the other side of the journey, we could really call the results a miracle, because we know it couldn't have happened with our own resources.  It's all His blessing.

So while I chafe at the slowness of things, I am comforted when I see the leaves.  God who is the Master Designer of all things does all those things well.  The leaves don't have to "do" anything to bud and develop and mature through their process; they are empowered by their Creator.  So I, too, can rest in the progressions.  After all, isn't the root word of progression progress?