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The Crosswalk Devotional: A Daily Devotional Chris... - What Autumn Teaches Us about Beautiful Endings · The Light

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  Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Crosswalk Devotional. We're glad to have you
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  Speaker 2: listening with us. Today's topic is about what autumn teaches
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  Speaker 2: us about beautiful endings.
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  Speaker 1: We'll return with.
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  Speaker 2: The devotional after a brief message from our sponsors. What
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  Speaker 2: Autumn Teaches Us About Beautiful Endings Written in Red by
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  Speaker 2: Hannah Benson For everything there is a season and a
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  Speaker 2: time for every matter under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3.1 ESV Autumn
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  Speaker 2: has always been one of my favorite seasons. Crisp, colorful
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  Speaker 2: leaves crunching underneath my feet, hot apple cider, pumpkins, corn mazes,
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  Speaker 2: and the list goes on. Perhaps it also helps that
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  Speaker 2: my birthday falls during these autumn months. ensuring that even
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  Speaker 2: as a child, this was the season I favored most.
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  Speaker 2: I have such fond memories of growing up, playing dodgeball
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  Speaker 2: outside with my siblings and dad in the dark and
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  Speaker 2: watching gorgeous Appalachian mountain sunsets through our kitchen window as
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  Speaker 2: my family and I ate a cozy supper of soup
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  Speaker 2: and cornbread. But as we say hello to autumn, we
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  Speaker 2: inevitably have to say goodbye to the previous season of summer.
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  Speaker 2: To long evenings playing outside before dusk, cool dips in
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  Speaker 2: the water, and hiking up mountains in the blazing heat. Well,
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  Speaker 2: maybe saying goodbye to the humidity isn't such a bad thing.
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  Speaker 2: And as much as I absolutely love autumn, when I
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  Speaker 2: first thought about writing this devotional, fear squeezed my heart.
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  Speaker 2: God usually calls me to write what I've first gone
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  Speaker 2: through myself. So what this autumn might I have to
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  Speaker 2: say goodbye to in order to write this article? One
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  Speaker 2: evening before supper, I stood in my bedroom, gazing at
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  Speaker 2: the dreariness outside. God, I whispered, what are you teaching me?
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  Speaker 2: What beautiful ending do you want me to write about?
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  Speaker 2: Perhaps something I had to surrender, a closed door, something
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  Speaker 2: God had taught me, either recently or in years past.
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  Speaker 2: Then I realized deep down what God.
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  Speaker 1: Had been teaching me.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes we think beautiful endings need to come from losing
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  Speaker 2: something or someone we care deeply about, or from a
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  Speaker 2: door that's slammed shut in our face that God will
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  Speaker 2: use for our good. While God does rewrite tragedies into
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  Speaker 2: beautiful endings, what if beautiful endings also come from letting go.
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  Speaker 1: Of wearisome things?
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  Speaker 2: Earlier this year, I was striving, afraid of losing what
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  Speaker 2: mattered to me, and afraid of truly surrendering. I gripped
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  Speaker 2: my own expectations with an iron fist. I wanted to surrender,
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  Speaker 2: knew I needed to. But I couldn't, no matter how
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  Speaker 2: hard I tried. Then, a couple months ago, God gently
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  Speaker 2: told me to release. If only it were that easy.
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  Speaker 2: I realized that there was absolutely nothing I could do
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  Speaker 2: to change what I could see. God changed my heart,
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  Speaker 2: I whispered. Slowly, bit by bit, God unraveled the expectations
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  Speaker 2: I had and allowed me to release what I clung to.
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  Speaker 2: Surrender isn't something we can accomplish with our own human willpower.
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  Speaker 2: It is something the Holy Spirit needs to work in
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  Speaker 2: our hearts. When we stop striving, God's grace accomplishes within
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  Speaker 2: us what our flesh cannot. As summer drew to a close,
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  Speaker 2: so did the expectations I clung to with an iron fist.
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  Speaker 2: That's not to say I don't still struggle sometimes. But
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  Speaker 2: as I reflect on where I was emotionally and spiritually
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  Speaker 2: earlier this year, I've recognized that things I thought I'd
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  Speaker 2: lost were not lost when they are surrendered to the
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  Speaker 2: Father's hand. Intersecting Faith and Life When this year started,
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  Speaker 2: if I'm being honest, I looked at my circumstances and thought,
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  Speaker 2: God couldn't possibly change things. Which is wrong, I know.
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  Speaker 2: After all, the impossible is possible with God. Either that
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  Speaker 2: or I assumed God wouldn't change things. But as the
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  Speaker 2: months passed and spring turned into summer and summer turned
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  Speaker 2: into autumn, God did so many things I once thought impossible,
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  Speaker 2: changing my heart before he began to change some of
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  Speaker 2: my circumstances. Like the trees yield their leaves unto the
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  Speaker 2: earth in order to pave way for spring, so does
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  Speaker 2: the Lord ask us to yield what we've held onto
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  Speaker 2: to make way for something new. Sometimes the new is
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  Speaker 2: completely different. It might mean saying goodbye to the good
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  Speaker 2: things in our lives to make way for something better.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes it means letting go of the heavy burdens and
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  Speaker 2: fears we were never meant to carry in the first place.
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  Speaker 2: There are times he invites us to trust him and
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  Speaker 2: watch him do what we were almost too afraid to
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  Speaker 2: hope for. In John 15, Jesus tells his disciples that
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  Speaker 2: we are the branches. He is the vine and his
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  Speaker 2: father is the vinedresser. The branches cannot bear fruit on
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  Speaker 2: their own apart from the vine. Neither can we bear
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  Speaker 2: fruit apart from Jesus. Often the Lord must prune away
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  Speaker 2: not only our sin and self-reliance, but even good things
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  Speaker 2: we cling to, so we may continually become more like
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  Speaker 2: him and bear even more fruit. Yes, the pruning can
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  Speaker 2: be painful. The result is more beautiful than we could
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  Speaker 2: ever imagine. Every season has its own kind of beauty.
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  Speaker 2: Whether we lost something or someone dear to us, where
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  Speaker 2: God stripped away the fears, self-reliance, or sin that held
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  Speaker 2: us back from embracing true life. Every ending is made
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  Speaker 2: beautiful in His perfect time. Pray with me. Dear Father God,
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  Speaker 2: thank you for pruning the parts of me that do
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  Speaker 2: not please you so that I can bear fruit pleasing
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  Speaker 2: to you. Please help me to trust you even when
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  Speaker 2: the pruning is painful or not always pleasant. You are
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  Speaker 2: a good Father. In Jesus' name, amen.
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