{"id":2279,"date":"2011-11-13T08:19:44","date_gmt":"2011-11-13T16:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=2279"},"modified":"2015-05-06T07:00:19","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T14:00:19","slug":"wisdom-from-leaf-watching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2011\/wisdom-from-leaf-watching\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisdom from Leaf Watching"},"content":{"rendered":"

I stood at the bottom of the giant oak (or was it an elm?!) down in the canyon.<\/p>\n

I tipped by head way back to stare at yellowed leaves up high. Stared, so I could track movement in my periphery.<\/p>\n

Soon I saw it wave for my attention. Drifting down through the windstill air. Down. Down.<\/p>\n

Another leaf. Dead. Disconnected. Falling from its glorious height.<\/p>\n

Soon adding another “tile” to the carpet on the ground.<\/p>\n

\"The
\nfrom Luke 14:11<\/em><\/div>\n

I returned to gazing, staring, upward, waiting to track the next descending leaf.<\/p>\n

Some spun. Others rocked or twirled or floated.<\/p>\n

But always down.<\/p>\n

A few got stuck in the trees, “rescued” by their fellows. Most made it to the ground. And some even went below ground level, into the pond.<\/p>\n

But they all fell from their high birth place.<\/p>\n

Detached from their birthrights, they fell.<\/p>\n

As I gazed…and as I walked away…and as I thought back later…I gleaned wisdom.<\/p>\n

When the leaf fell, it didn’t rise above its previous exalted position.<\/p>\n

Even when it didn’t get all the way to the ground, it was demoted.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it struck another leaf in its descent, destabilized it, and sent it down as well.<\/p>\n

From way up high to way down low.<\/p>\n

From living to dead.<\/p>\n

From vibrant to mulch.<\/p>\n

Can we expect anything better?<\/p>\n

For our humanity?<\/p>\n

And our pride?<\/p>\n

Yes!<\/b><\/p>\n

If our fall kills our pride, leading us to humility.<\/p>\n

If our remorse results in repentance, leading us to Christ.<\/p>\n

If we allow Him Who makes dead bones live make us live again.<\/p>\n

Can these bones live?<\/a><\/p>\n

“Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live”<\/span> (Ezekiel 37:5).<\/p>\n

(Interested in the blog post associated with the above graphic? Humility and Inclusion<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I stood at the bottom of the giant oak (or was it an elm?!) down in the canyon. I tipped by head way back to stare at yellowed leaves up high. Stared, so I could track movement in my periphery. Soon I saw it wave for my attention. Drifting down through the windstill air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[186],"class_list":["post-2279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-101","category-lessons-for-living","tag-hope"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-AL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}