Proverbs 15:23 A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word spoken in due season, how good is it!

Have you done this? Have you delivered the word of the Lord in due season, not your own words, the Lord’s words? I have and I have to admit, not enough. If you can you should. That begs to ask the hard question, why doesn’t it happen more often?

People are complicated. Relationships are complicated. We make assumptions rather than asking the hard questions. We look to the outward signs and never get into the hearts and minds of those we meet. That takes time. It takes commitment. It takes away from things we want to do.

I dare say we only get into those awkward moments when we attend a seminar or revival or training session specifically designed to take you to task. Outside those moment, how much of that probing into the heart of another do we do on a daily basis.

I’m too busy. They are too busy. I don’t want to be pushy. I don’t want to endanger our relationship.

What kind of a relationship do you have if you do not know how another feels about those things which mean the most to you? Or is it that those things you call important have nothing to do with kingdom living? We feel comfortable talking about football, food, movies, books, home and auto. So are you as comfortable talking about kingdom living?

Guys talk about car restoration with comfort but not so much with restoring your soul. We share that new recipe at every opportunity, but not what we discovered in God’s word today. If that is the case then I have to ask…..

Has your chewing gum lost its flavor on the bedpost overnight?

Isaiah 6:13 But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

I wanted to do a telling of the fall season. You can imagine how difficult it must be to find relevant passages within scriptures about the fall season considering the landscape of the middle east. Yet here it is in the last passage of one of the shortest chapters in Isaiah’s writings.

Isaiah 6 is best known for inspiring words in verse 8; “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.” We even have a very moving song we sing called Here I am LORD. It is a very touching song and stirs the hearts of the faithful as we sing.

So inspiring that we often forget the words that God called Isaiah to speak. Even if you do remember the call to close the eyes and ears lest they should understand and be saved, you might gloss over this last line and any significance.

The leaves have turned and fallen to the ground and in the Hebrew its meaning is lost its glory. The tree is bare all winter until the earth warms again and in the spring the leaves return bright, shiny and alive with newness of life.

Look again at verse 13 and see the substance is in them, the trees, which is the life of the tree, the sap which returns to the ground causes the life to leave the leaf, wither and fall. We marvel at the colors of fall, we even travel great distances to see and photograph the fall foliage. But it is a dying moment, the glory last only for a short while and then falls to the ground.

We wait with great anticipation for the spring when that which is in us will rise again and show with all the glory of spring all the newness of life that is in us. There is reason and purpose for the seasons that we go thru in life, so that we will know where true life is in us and not our own glory which fades and falls.