Once a year, Fall arrives.
A crispness lingers in the morning air.
The farmers are out in their fields, and the crops are drying out.
Trees are marking time; leaves that were once strong and lush and green have changed.
The colors are brilliant, but they rattle in the wind.
The leaves float down to the ground and get crunched under your feet.
Those leaves really aren’t good for anything anymore.
They don’t give shade, they don’t give protection.
They don’t absorb carbon dioxide or produce oxygen.
They are dry and brittle – easily broken, cracked, snapped, ruined.
The wind carries them away.
I love how God gives us so many lessons through nature.
This is the one He teaches me every Fall:
All the things of this world are dry and brittle.
They aren’t good for anything.
While they may be brilliant (like the reds, oranges, and yellows of autumn),
They will fall to the ground.
They are broken and useless.
They’ll be crushed under your feet or the wind will carry them away.
I’ve had to be careful.
In my journey to independently publish books, I’ve listened to many podcasts, read blogs, and joined online forums.
I’ve learned lots of things about writing, publishing, and marketing.
But more than once, I’ve had to step back and take a hard look at things.
Because woven into all this great advice is a dangerous assumption:
The end goal of all your work is money and/or fame.
Work hard so that you can achieve personal success.
That’s what I’m hearing from the world.
And I don’t want that to be true of me.
I often have to remind myself of why I want to publish books.
It’s not to make a name for myself or to earn piles of money.
That stuff is brittle.
The reason I write is to glorify Christ and point people to Him.
He’s the Wisdom of God – and that’s what people desperately need.
The Wellspring of Life, the Evergreen Vine – He will never dry up.
When it comes to the end of my life, I don’t want to look back with regret.
I don’t want to be brilliant in the world’s eyes, but brittle, useless, and fruitless.
I don’t want to be chaff that the wind drives away (Psalm 1).
I don’t want the things I do in this life to be hay and stubble that get burned up (1 Cor 3).
I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling the world’s pull.
What brilliant, breath-taking things of the world are catching your eye?
Don’t be deceived, and don’t fall for them.
They’re brittle.
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