AUTUMN LEAVES

'Will you break a leaf, driven to and fro?

Will you pursue the dry stubble  ?

You put my feet in the stocks

and lookest narrowly upon all my paths.

JOB 13V23-24

I NOTICED THESE VERSES way back in the '90s.    I was struck by them, and by the images they conjured in my mind.       I thought of a leaf, driven to and fro, and imagined a leaf drained of its life, blown from its place by the wind, helplessly driven to and fro till it finally reached the ground, waiting to turn to dust. ,Fallen leaves are merely trampled under foot or left to molder away, back into the dust.    Somehow dead leaves can be of little worth, We crumple them up in our hand for the fun of it.  And even we can come to a place where we see our very selves to be of little worth, deserving of little more than to be spurned and perhaps forgotten, YET God takes notice of us all, not regarding our condition.   Will He break a leaf overwhelmed by the wind?    No!      'A bruised reed HE will not break, and a dimly burning wick HE will not quench' writes Isaiah in chapter 42v3.     At no time does God give up on any one of us whilst there is a sign of Life in us.     Somehow our Father in Heaven always sees our underlying value, and looks under the surface to find a hidden beauty, and a reason to HOPE.

Will HE pursue the dry stubble - the spiritually dried out husk, the fruitless stubble of our life?   Will interest Himself in a 'field', a life, past its best, already harvested of its fruit? Yes He will, and we should always endevour to continually keep the apprehension of the goodness and compassion of God toward us, so that we also treat each other in this way - especially, but not only, those that are of the Family of God.    God and us together must learn to love each other so that we believe for the success of one another successfully.    But often we grow neglectful, and find our 'old self' looking critically and even judgmentally at one another.   THUS we see a tide of 'hate speech' pervading our daily affairs.   Men and women opening their mouths to let all the evil that is in their heart flow out in injurious and damaging words.

ELDORET is said to have more than one thousand Pastors, even more church buildings, all described as Christian belonging to more than 240 different 'Christian' denominations.   Are all these Pastors praying together?   Do they love one another?   Do the Members of their congregations love those members of other, different, denominations?    Is there UNITY.      If the answer were to be YES, then surely this town must be seen to be like Heaven!   With 1000+ churches and regular evangelistic Crusades crime still flourishes, corruption is rampant, and immorality on the increase.

And even those supposedly representing God often find themselves with their 'feet in the stocks' unable to walk in His steps and keep to the Straight and Narrow way.     Aye!  And many of them mistrust each other as brethren and look NARROWLY, meanly and even suspiciously upon each other's ministry.     And everywhere there is blatant and determined competition relative to how big a church is, and how many members it has.     And most are run to make money and not to bring peace to the soul of a man or woman.

One Commentator stated some years ago that in Kenya the breadth of Christianity is WIDE, but not very deep.     Commitment is rare to find;  commitment to living the LIFE Christ gives us I mean.

A lot of nominal Christians of ALL denominations.    Drums, electric guitars, keyboards, and high powered loud speakers all combine to deafeningly blast the Bible, and not always the Truth, from every corner.    But do we love one another?   Do we enquire after one another? are we concerned to know our brothers and sisters across the Christian spectrum of dini?

SO on the surface we have peace and comparative quietness in the midst of severe poverty, with the majority living under the 'Bread Line' - but we do (even foreign missionaries) tend to look narrowly upon one another.      We find it easy to doubt each other's integrity and sense of purpose on all levels. 

And the TEACHERS, are still on strike, and many of them will testify to being Christians, yea, even Born Again.   But they have not obeyed the Government, have not laid down their complaint, willing to sacrifice themselves, for the sake of the children. Another sign of how truly un Christlike people are.    It is still ME first, and God and the whosoever afterwards.    Still not much better than unbelievers really.     We hear people say NOT MY WILL, but Yours be done, but we see more and more people DOING what they want, not what God wants - and according to Matthew 7 it looks as if a lot of people who think they are OK with Jesus on their lips, may end up shut out and cast out of Heaven - just because they did not DO God's Will in their lives.    Scary.

REASON to pray and re-evaluate our lives, our faith.  Reason to apologize to God in Heaven, and turn our lives around to truly demonstrate just how sorry we are.   Will God in Heaven hear the sinner?    Will He listen to the waster of life?   Will he look at us with a loving and mercy filled heart - just as we are in all our imperfections?    YES He will  - just make sure Jesus is with you when you talk to Him ( your Father).

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