The first mowing had come and gone last week and still there were several trees in the front yard that were keeping a tight hold on their leaves! My daughter was getting ready to mow for the second time and I wanted to keep from raking leaves in the spring. That is just wrong! Anyone walking by our house would have seen me vigorously shaking the limbs, trying to get a few more leaves to fall. Some came down, but most of them remained tightly fastened in their places.
Just days later, all of a sudden, all of the leaves were down! Every last one of them! And all with no more shaking on my part! What huge event happened to strip the remaining leaves from the trees? A thunderstorm? Hail? A midnight sneaking leafblower? No, none of the above. The only thing that could remove these trees is much less dramatic and much more powerful. The gentle nudging of tiny, fragile, pale green new leaves. God-designed.
Isn’t that just like Him? Our often dramatic and violent means are never as effective as His. He knows just the right touch in just the right place.
Do I have any dead leaves hanging on in my life? Negative habits, maybe? How often have you tried to remove something by attacking it directly? It’s just like repeatedly saying, “I won’t think about rabbits”, and then finding that all you can think of all day long are bunnies, rabbits, hares, jackrabbits… and it won’t stop!
When an evil[a] spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. Matthew 12
What habit needs to be swept out of my life? Will I be more successfuly by focusing on building positive things into my life and letting them crowd out the negative? What change do you need in your life? Just like the pin oaks, why not let your Father gently crowd out the evil by replacing it with good.