For the Purpose of Dying

A day or two ago I had some time to go and sit by a small lake and pray. After years of being able to pray at the ocean or the Merrimack River of Thoreau fame, I had just about given up on finding any water in my Tennessee town. Thanks to the generosity of a local children’s home with a private lake, I now have a spot to watch the sunlight shimmer on water again.


Across the lake, behind a line of bare trees, was another row that still was adorned in their fall colors. Their coats will be gone next week, but that day they blessed me. On the way home I drove down some quiet streets where some of their cousins were past their peak but still on the glorious side.


On one of the last days of another fabulous fall, my mind went back more than forty years. When I was dating a college sophomore who would later become my first wife, and my only wife, she wrote a good number of poems. One my favorites was about the brilliant colors of the fall season. It ended with these lines:


Nature is all ablaze
for the sole purpose of dying,
while man timidly retires
and clings tenaciously to life.


As usual, God’s creation teaches some great lessons and Sheila captured it poignantly. The trees are never more spectacular than when they are dying. And we are never more glorious than when we stop clinging tenaciously to our lives, and become the seed that falls into the ground and dies (John 12:24). Some of us are clinging to something. If we will only die, our life, our marriage or our ministry can be ablaze.

Focus Scripture

John 12:23-28

Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. [24] I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. [25] The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. [26] Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

[27] "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. [28] Father, glorify your name!"

Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again."