Changes
Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
II Corinthians 4:16
Ah, photosynthesis! (Erk…record scratch). It’s unlikely that word is the first one that comes to mind this time of year. You probably hadn’t thought about it since elementary school science class.
Yet you are a witness to that process. Summer’s heat has finally faded. Overnight, the Creator of the Universe silently transformed the earth into His annual, breathtaking masterpiece. The mountains and valleys burst with vivid color as if He scattered an enormous bucket of confetti across the mountainside, along rivers and streams and into your own front yard.
Earth does a costume change and whirls her kaleidoscopic skirts in a fiery dance into one of its most beautiful seasons. The crisp fall air is charged with excitement. Our thoughts turn to hiking, tailgating, and those first oak-fragrant flames in the fireplace. To celebrate the cooler months, we bundle up in hoodies and boots, go on leaf-peeping road trips, sip steaming cups of cocoa, roast marshmallows for s’mores and decorate our homes with gourds, pinecones, and bright yellow chrysanthemums. Our senses are tantalized with all things pumpkin, shiny apples from a farmer’s market and, everywhere, leaves turn deep red, gold, orange and nearly purple.
All that beauty isn’t so much a physical change (size, shape and appearance, etc.) as it is a temporary variation. When an infant becomes a toddler, a child, an adult, a senior, each change is fleeting as our bodies grow, mature and develop. Photosynthesis is more of a chemical change when two or more substances react to form a new one; those changes are usually permanent.
Photosynthesis is the process by which green plants prepare their own food from
carbon dioxide and water by using the energy in sunlight. Chlorophyll is the green pigment plants use to make food; it’s chlorophyll’s job to absorb that sunlight. We live because the genius process God created works in tandem with our need to breathe in oxygen produced by plants and trees, then breathe out the carbon dioxide they require.
In the fall, when days are filled with warm sunlight and the nights grow chilly, photosynthesis breaks down the green pigment and unmasks the underlying yellow and orange pigments beneath. Then when the green coloring starts to deteriorate, leaves put on those warm tones that signal change is coming. In a spectacular metamorphosis, a sea of green trees explodes into dazzling foliage.
God uses a similar process. Tenderly, He takes care of us, providing all our physical needs and what we require to grow and learn in Him. As you view autumn’s gorgeous hues, consider the miraculous transformation that knowing Jesus brings. Only the mind of God could imagine a process that parallels the change in nature that works inside us, too. When we invite the Inventor of all things to step into our lives, heart and soul, we are permanently altered. The “green” in our lives might indicate we are a good person, but He will strip away any focus on self and take those gifts, those callings, those talents and enhance them with His power and grace. Like the leaves, when we are radically changed, we cannot hide from the world the One to Whom we belong. We become a brilliant reflection of Him.
Photosynthesis. Salvation. Rebirth.
This fall, as you stand in awe of the blaze of glory in the woods, across the hills, and along the byways, lift your head, praise Him and absorb His life-giving SON light.
Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold,
all things are become new.
II Corinthians 5: 17
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