Earlier this fall, I was running around a beautiful lake where I often train, right on the cusp of peak foliage. I had a lot on my mind, as my husband and I were navigating some decisions with many variables outside of our control. As I circled the stone dust path trying to sort out my thoughts, I noticed a yellow leaf seemingly suspended in midair, twirling in the wind… but not falling.
After several laps watching it sway within the same radius, I realized there was an invisible spider web connecting it back to a tree. I stopped for a closer look. This golden leaf moved gracefully in the breeze, seemingly unbothered by its bounds. The movement carried delight, as if the spider web was but a mercy, tethering the leaf to its life source… preventing its death.
I laughed. God reveals Himself through nature, if we’re paying attention.
When I’m in a season of ambiguity, it often feels like I’m disconnected. I’ve (re)learned to lead the feeling by preaching to myself what’s true & sure — the promises of God — over & over. I imagine them grounding me, returning me to my foundation.
In these moments, there is a battle. My impatience grows in the waiting, and being “grounded” can start to feel like getting home past curfew when I was 17 — like I’m punished, prohibited from something I desire. Like God has placed me “on hold” until I learn my lesson.
But — as Golden Leaf preached to me, dangling happily from the tree — God doesn’t scold, he holds. My mental image of “grounding” was reinforcing the false notion of a spiteful God, which did not align with His promises. The image right before me, rather, — leaf, spider web, and tree — accurately reflected the kind of person He is.
All His delays, all the uncertainty, all the disappointment, intend to draw His children close. We are not “on hold”, but rather, HELD by the One, the Son, who has reconciled us to the Father (Rom 5:10-11). Even more, He is ONE with the Father (John 17:21). And because “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:38-39), no matter the circumstances, we are still seen, cared for, held in the arms of a Good Father.
Stunned, thankful, I began to run again, processing the lesson contained in what I had just observed.
It is good and necessary to return to God’s word when I feel suspended in the unknown. In fact, the One who holds us, Jesus, is himself the Word of God (John 1:1,14). The question is: does my imagination of Him accurately reflect His character? When I perceive the Lord as He really is – not spiteful, but “faithful in all his words and kind in all his works” (Ps 145:13b) – I can trust him. When I can trust him, I become like the golden leaf, united to the Father, held by the Son, dancing to the wind of the Spirit – full of delight.