Thursday, September 25, 2014

From the hand of the Master Artist


Last evening at church, our pastor shared a very encouraging message.  I hope to share more about it later on, but he ended the message with just a simple exhortation that -- no matter what difficulty may be going on in our lives -- we need to take our eyes off the circumstances, take our eyes off ourselves, and fix our eyes on the Lord, who is in control of our situation and has a plan and purpose for all that He allows.  Simple?  Yes, but not so easy to put into practice sometimes.  I find that often I can take my eyes off the circumstances and I can fix them on God, but taking my eyes off myself (how I feel, how tired I am, etc.) is a lot harder to do.

And so I have been pondering our pastor's exhortation ever since, and am asking God to help me make this a reality in my life: to help me to look at Him, and not at the circumstances or myself.  So, this morning I headed out to do some grocery shopping.  As I approached the car, the first thing I saw was a fallen leaf on the driveway.  Yes, yes, that's what leaves do this time of year, but this was special.  It was ... plaid.  The scan doesn't really do it justice, but the dark areas are plain dark maroon, while the intersecting "plaid" areas are multicolored red, yellow, and green.  I have never seen a leaf like this one.

I've noticed, especially this year,  that often the first leaves to fall are multicolored.  I shared some of those in an earlier post.  And here are a couple more that I spotted this morning.  Aren't they pretty?


But this plaid, or maybe one would say argyle, leaf just caught my eye. 

And my very first thought was of our all-wise, all-powerful, incredibly imaginative Creator.  Wow!  And I had just asked Him to help me keep my eyes fixed on Him and to remind me of His power and sovereignty in my life and in our world.  What a neat way He picked to remind me!

6 comments:

  1. What a timely message for many of us Mrs T. Thanks for sharing and for sharing that it is hard for you to do that. I totally understand...it is hard for me too. And that plaid leaf...amazing!!

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  2. Arlene, I am so happy that this post encouraged you today! Once I spotted that leaf, I knew that I had to scan it and blog about it. It was wet and somewhat sandy when I found it, so I had to clean it off a bit after my return from the grocery store. By the time I got back from my time at my dad's the leaf had begun to dry out, so it isn't as pretty as when I first found it. But one can still see that it's plaid! I'm so thankful for scanners!

    Glad you enjoyed this message from a maple leaf today!

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  3. I too appreciated that message. I had a post that I was going to put up, but couldn't put together all the thoughts I had at the time, so decided to wait a while to put it up.

    Thursday at work seemed a breeze when I looked at the day with those thoughts circulating through my mind.

    The leaves have been absolutely beautiful this year and tomorrow I plan to collect some for our Sunday School lesson. I have not looked at any close up yet... just from the car window as the landscape zooms by. The air is lovely in the morning and God is so good to allow me to enjoy such beauty each morning.


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  4. I will be looking forward to reading your post, Mrs. Doug! I too need to collect my thoughts and organize them a little better before posting. Who knows how soon that will be?

    I can't really say that my day yesterday was a breeze -- I have to regularly force my thoughts off myself and onto the Lord -- but it was a good day as I continually thought about the exhortation from the previous evening. People miss so much when they miss the midweek service. I couldn't get by without it!

    Yes, the leaves seem especially brilliant this year, and the colors seem to have come out almost overnight. We are so blessed to live in such a beautiful area.

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  5. Anonymous8:04 PM

    That plaid leaf is amazing! :) I have never seen one similar.:)
    I love how God teaches us things .How thankful I am that God is so patient with me. At times I am such a slow learner! At least tomorrow we start a new. :)

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  6. I am so happy you stopped by, Nikki, and that you enjoyed seeing the plaid leaf!

    I too seem to be a slow learner and am also thankful that God is the God of patience. Sometimes I feel as if I need to learn the same lessons over and over. Wish I could just learn them once and for all and get it over with!

    Yes, as Anne of Green Gables said, "Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet"!

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