I wondered why the autumn leaves on my oak tree were still hanging on, though the worst of the winter winds had done their best to set them free. They seemed not just to defy their deciduous relations, who were already looking decidedly naked, but even gravity itself, with its relentless downwards pull. I thought they were just being stubborn, but I discovered that the reason for their doggedness is that they can only be dislodged by new growth coursing through the branches.

And this reason I discovered not in some book on botany, but in a tome on theology. The worthy Puritans apparently knew well the oaken phenomenon, and employed the fact to illustrate that blessedness where the new Christian life dislodges the old affections. It’s a lovely thought: Christ in me, not just the hope of glory; but Christ in me, infusing His love and grace, and pushing out the old habits and dislodging the old desires.

Illustrations do not provide an exact parallel, and happily so in this case. The brown leaves on my oak tree will fall, and green leaves will reappear, but only again to return to brown and repeat the cycle. But not so in the Christian life. The new leaves of love and grace will hold their place, and deepen their hue, and thicken their depth, and broaden their span, and create more air to breathe, and more shade to bless, and draw more sap from the Source to remain evergreen.