A Time to Die

Leafless Tree in Maejo University
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Taken February 7, 2008

With my recent experience at the Elijah House school, I have become aware of a deep stirring within my spirit.

Though what I feel cannot be fully articulated, I share it here knowing that in the telling, some things will become clearer.

I am entering into another season, and it is a season of rest.

But before that can happen, there is a needed season of preparation, and I'm in it now.

It is the season of dying to self.

Some of what I will share on this post comes from a letter I wrote a dear friend three years ago. However, the circumstances in which I find myself are different.

It's a variation on the same theme.

I have come to the same point in a spiral, but it's time for me to learn a new lesson along the same theme. The spiral takes me to a higher level.

It is easy to become proud without being aware of it. But these past weeks God has been pointing His finger at this area in my life, and He wants to expose it.

Dying to self means giving up what ever spiritual gains I have made, and laying them down at the feet of Jesus.

Emptying myself to be filled anew.

I don't want any part of what was Lucifer's downfall.

I truly desire to have the mind of Jesus that made Him willing to humble Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

I have gone through autumn seasons time and again. It is a recurring theme in my life. My wise Father knows what is best for me.

When I was just a new Christian in early 1974, I remember praying this to Him, "Lord, I don't want to be a half-baked, mediocre born-again child of Yours. I want to follow after You whole-heartedly. Whatever You want for me, I want it all and nothing less; and whatever You don't want for me, I don't want it either."

And so, all through the years of my Christian life, I have seen God continually giving me answers to this prayer. Autumns that I have gone through in my life were stripping seasons -- just like leaves falling, one by one, until the tree was bare. And in the autumns of my life, the stripping process has never been easy.

Fall brings with it a certain melancholy air, because it is a graphic reminder of dying. In the stripping seasons I have felt like being put in a back burner, like meat simmering unnoticed until tender. Well, in fact, that is what is happening inside of me. God is answering my prayer that my heart be made tender for the things that really matter to Him.

Then comes the winter, a seeming death of all that one had hoped for -- but the truth is that in winter there is actually so much life pulsating underneath that cold blanket of stillness.

Everything is a preparation for spring. It is in spring when all of a sudden life bursts forth.

Indeed, it is true, there is life out of death.

Without dying there is no living.

Without autumn there is no room for the newness of life that spring brings.

Without us being stripped of human pride, there is no room for heaven's humility.

Without humility, one's heart is full, and there is no room for the fresh, life-giving touch of God.

Yes, my autumn seasons have been humbling seasons when God scrapes off my rough edges, to reveal in my spring seasons, the real beauty hidden beneath the surface. So, painful as it is, I can only accept, and rejoice in, the pruning process from my heavenly Father.

I am a gardener and I only know this too well. Pruning cuts back unwanted growth, and sometimes, even the fair blossoms must fall. What looks like a seeming waste to the untrained onlooker, to the expert husbandman, the Divine Gardener, is an act of grace.

Life has not been all that I have wanted or expected it to be, but through it all one thing has been constant, God has been there for me. Pruning, yes, but also giving life...

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is that passage in Joel: "I will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten." (Joel 2:25)

This verse speaks powerfully to me because it is a promise of restoration. God will send rains upon the land. "The threshing floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil." (Joel 2:24)

The proud heart is a stony, hardened heart, but a humble heart is like land that has been softened by rain.

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord,
and He will lift you up.

- James 4:10

This particular autumn season in my life I am thanking God for the promise of rest, which I know is coming soon.

Father, in this much needed season, help me prepare the ground of my heart.

Parts of it have been neglected, break up the fallow ground...

Parts of it are dry, water it with your life-giving water...

Parts are untended and overrun with weeds, remove the weeds, Father...

There are still unhealed wounds hiding under proud flesh, apply your healing balm dear God...

You have spoken to me Jezreel, over and over again... "God will sow".

Yes, Father soften my heart for You to sow new things into my garden!

In this season, I choose to

...rest from judgment

...rest from self-praise

...rest from self-righteousness

...rest from false burdens

...rest from self-focus

...rest from complacency.


In this season I embrace vulnerability, compassion, gentleness.

Let me go the way of peace.

I choose humility.

To the season of AUTUMN, God said:
"Yours will be the gift of death,
not a death shrouded in pain and sadness,
rather it shall be the joy
of seeing the fulfillment of what has gone before.
You will know the goodness of life richly lived,
You will taste the sweetness of life harvested and sweetly shared."

Taken from When God Began in the Middle, 'Twixt Spring and Autumn', by Joseph Juknialis

Same leafless tree shown above, two weeks after