Raking Leaves

“We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me.” (Romans 15:1-3)

We have reached that time of the year when our yard work chore consists of picking up all the dead stuff that the trees decided to bequeath upon us. Mine always hits me just after coming home fromBelize. Our annual trip is usually during that stretch when the bulk of the leaves fall. So I leave for the tropics with about 6 leaves on the ground and experience 95 degree weather, and return home to an immediate blast of 30 degree days and 6 billion leaves to deal with. It is such a shock to the system and such a huge load that I usually have to tackle it in tiny segments of an hour at a time. The biggest problem is that of the 6 billion leaves I have to deal with every year, no more than about 50 of them are actually mine. We have a small redbud in the front yard that produces a few, then the rest of them are from the neighbors. Across the street and on both sides are huge trees, and for whatever reason, it seems the leaves all gravitate to my yard. I guess the position of my house and the fall wind currents work together to create massive mounds of dead rotting decaying foliage on our property. I sometimes feel like gathering them all up and sorting them into their various “tree DNA” piles, then knocking on their doors and delivering them back to their rightful owners. But that would be a lot more work than what I have to do now, and a whole lot less neighborly.

Quite often we get “dumped on” with things in life that are not our fault and not our doing, yet we still have to deal with it. In these moments, we all cry out, “Not fair!” Life is never fair. In fact, the word “fair” is never used one time in the Bible in the context of “just or equitable”. Our first parents saw to it that we would be continually plagued with injustices when they chose to rebel against God and sin. Since then, the rest of us live in a world full of sin, and you contribute your fair share to the cause just like everyone else does. Sometimes, the “leaves” of your sin fall on your neighbor’s lawn, and they have to clean them up. Other times, you reap the consequences of the actions of those around you. And you can’t fall back on the old adage that “it will all even out in the end”, because it really won’t on this side of eternity. There will never be an “evening out” of the fall leaves at our house. Our one puny little tree will never produce enough to offset the many monster trees of our neighbors. Even if we cut all of theirs down and planted a forest in our own yard, we have 18 autumn seasons in the books at this house, and we could never catch up. It is just part of life. God told us in Galatians 6:2, “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” When you think of it, the “inequity” of life actually has a bit of a benefit because it forces us to rely on each other at times. God made us as social creatures. He said it is not good for us to dwell alone. The fact that I have to clean up after others and they have to clean up after me can serve to draw us closer together. You learn some great qualities of life like longsuffering and grace that cannot be learned from books. They have to be learned from the experiences of life that work together to mold our character in the image of our Lord.

Speaking of being dumped on, there is no greater example than the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (II Corinthians 5:21) My yard gets dumped with too many leaves, but at least a few of them are actually mine. Jesus “knew no sin”. Yet he “bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (I Peter 2:24) so that we could have eternal life. The next time we are tempted to complain about something that is “not fair”, remember what he did for you. Then go tell someone about it so they can experience his grace and forgiveness as well.