Likewise, a good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
Matthew 7:17
I have such mixed feelings about September… Usually I greet this month with a sense of dread. Here in PA this month starts off as hot and beautiful as the previous two months before it but… by the end of this month it will be unmistakably fall and the problem with fall is that it is short. But winter is long. Very long. So, I dread september.
I hate to see the long summer days end. I dread the ending of summer dinners taken outside as the summer sunlight fades. The warm mornings are ending, and summer flowers are fading, and in just 3 weeks summer will officially be over and the fall stolice will begin.
The thing is though, in all my moping about how much I hate to see summer end, I love fall! I love the colorful trees, I love how blue the sky looks by contrast, I love pulling out my fall decor. I love pumpkins, chai tea, brisk walks outside, and the smell of wood fires burning. I love fall – I rob this season of its joy but looking ahead to what is to come?
Why am I so busy worrying about the future that I forget the joy of today?
So this year I had a thought. What if instead of dreading fall; I look at it as summer’s golden hour? You know the golden hour; the hour before the sun officially sets and as it makes its descent through the sky and casts a celestial hue over everything, beautifying everything its golden rays touch.
That’s how I want to greet september. Not at the demise of summer, but as the final hooray, the month of warmth and beauty as the world slowly transforms from summer to fall- which is beautiful in its own right and also a season to be savored.
I want to intentionally savor the season I am in.
I want this month to serve as a reminder that every season has its golden hour, and there is much to be grateful for, whatever season we find ourselves.
We always get the choice in this life, whether to look at our lack or our plenty, the abundance of God’s goodness, or what we wish He would have provided. We can choose to glorify Him or we can choose to be angry with Him for not making our circumstances fit the vision we had for our lives.
Matthew 7:17 reminds us that every good tree bears good fruit- what kind of fruit are we bearing when we only think of the negative of our situations and neglect to dwell on all the goodness that God has blessed us with?
The attitudes with which we greet the world are often the only evidence to the world of who we really are. Are we being good representatives of Christ?
Perhaps you will join me in asking God to help us to see the bright side of things- the abundance of season we are in, rather than worrying about the next season. May He help us to shine His light into the world, no matter the season.