If you were to listen in on my prayers to God, you would hear many pleas for help. Heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are so common today that they often take center stage and become the focus of our prayers, especially when these enemies threaten people we love. If you were to listen to me pray, you might hear me mention falling leaves blowing in the autumn wind. In the past, I have dreaded the falling leaves as a harbinger of evil days to come, days that freeze fingers and toes and chill to the bone. The reality, however, is far from what I imagined.

I have recently learned that falling leaves are a way that our Creator protects trees from winter damage. During the spring and summer, leaves convert energy from the sun into sugar to feed the tree. How sweet it is! However, when the nights are long and the air is cold and dry, the tree would lose all of its life-sustaining moisture through the leaf that once fed it, if God had not made provision for the change in seasons.

So, here is how God solved that difficulty. He designed the tree to produce and secrete, when the nights are getting longer, ethylene and abscisic acid. These two chemicals change the ratio of two other chemicals in the tree. This, in turn, causes the tree to stop producing chlorophyll, the substance that makes leaves green and photosynthesis possible. This complicated process changes the appearance of the whole forest. The once hidden colors of the leaves delight our eyes with their beauty.

The altered chemical balance within the tree also causes the tree to reabsorb much of the nutrients and minerals from the leaves before they fall to the ground to act somewhat like an insulating mulch. Can you imagine how difficult it would be for man to try to keep the forests from freezing? It would be an exercise in futility. It would be almost as crazy as trying to save yourself spiritually. How futile it would be to try to atone for your own sins. How could we ever pay the wages of sin and yet live? Thankfully, God has everything under control.

In my mind, falling leaves are no longer harbingers of evil. They remind me of the infinite sacrifice God made in sending his one and only son to live and die perfectly for me. They are reasons to be thankful. All of our health concerns and all of our difficulties are but opportunities to trust him more. I don’t try to do God’s work nor do I try to add anything to it. I simply enjoy and respond to the presence of one who loves me more than all the trees of the forest. The falling leaves are reminders of the praise due to an all-powerful God who alone deserves center stage in our prayers.