Many people travel great distances in order to gaze at the dramatic fall colors.  I love autumn.  Gone are the torturing temperatures and the oppressive humidity.  Hello chilly mornings and vibrantly painted leaves.  I love to walk underneath the canopy of heavens canvas and admire the work of our great Master. 

        As I study his work I am amazed and overwhelmed at such creativity and skill.  When he dips his brush onto his palette and begins to paint, you had better stand back.  No one can match the variety of the colors he chooses nor duplicate the stroke of his brush.  Look up into the trees and behold his canvas.  Who else could take a little dirt, mix it with sunshine and some rain and create a green leaf?  And then spice it up with all the colors of the rainbow for us to enjoy; that my friend is a work of art.

        Monday I was walking through one of his great art galleries.  I look up and spot this leaf.  The evening sun was positioned just right and led my eye to this blazed orange beauty.  As I admire its underbelly I momentarily forget its fantastic coloring and notice as if for the first time its stem.  It looks like a great artery traveling to the heart of the leaf.  I imagine this stem as a might conduit used for transporting the nutrients that make life possible between leaves and roots.  And then it hits me, the stem has discovered the secret to a wonderful life; sharing.

       We are not cisterns or tanks made for hoarding; we are channels made for sharing.  We are not here to get but to give.  A life that is only concerned with acquiring, getting, buying and hoarding eventually become stagnant and not fit to drink from.  But the life that seeks to share the good things it has received remains delightfully fresh.  Look at this leaf and try to imagine what it would look like if it was severed from its stem for a couple of days.  It would become lifeless and ugly because it would not have an avenue of sharing with the roots.  Today, look for a way to share some of the good things you have been given.  Then stand back and watch as our Master painter begins to color your world.  Happiness is a choice; choose to share.

Something to think about:

• Have thy tools ready and the Lord will find thee work.

• Make yourself useful to somebody …No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else.

• Our business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

• The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention.

• Trust the Master for great things; with your five loaves and two fishes, he will show you a way to feed thousands.

• When people are serving, life is no longer meaningless.

• He does not do anything with us, only through us.

• The real tragedy of life is not in being limited to one talent, but in the failure to use the one talent.

Be thankful for those who share with you
Rickey Moore