i’ve been studying leaves lately. i’ve been examining them on the end of a rake. i’ve been gathering them together in great big piles, then moving those piles into even greater piles, then watching big trucks with even bigger rakes rake the leaves into piles greater still on their backs, destined to join the greatest of all piles some miles away.

i gather my great pile onto a tarp and drag it out to the side of the road. i wince as i watch a car speeding towards my heap, hoping my work won’t be undone. i notice how only a handful of the topmost leaves are rustled by the breezy wake; just a few loners blown off into some destination unknown. Sometimes a wind will blow just as i am flinging a bunch into the pile. Those airborn leaves catch the current and off they go.

And then today i read in psalm one hundred and forty seven that,

“He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow.”

And i say, “Yes. Yes He does.” I have seen it. And i can’t help but think of myself as one of those little leaves, inanimate on my own. But when the wind blows, i’m caught up in it and off i go. To where? Who knows? Who knows.

It’s an analogy far overdone, i know, but it speaks a truth to my soul. Right now, while we wonder where we’ll blow, there is a security in knowing that it is up to the wind. It is up to Him. He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow. We are just little leaves, quickly fading. It is not our part to determine where to go and how to fly ourselves there. We are just to be. Leaves living off the light of sun and drinking rain that we cannot cause to come, nor to stay away. We weather our seasons, turn green and grey in due time, and fall. And if the wind blows,

yes, when the wind blows

we fly.