Fall is a beautiful season of the year. For some, it is their absolute favorite season. Just the mention of it brings to mind thoughts of cool, crisp air, and images of brilliantly colored foliage. We think of hayrides, harvest festivals, and pumpkin patches. We conjure images of ourselves sitting by an outdoor fire pit, drinking a cup of coffee, enjoying the beauty, and listening to all the sounds of nature by which we are surrounded.

What appears to be missing from this picturesque ideal of fall is the time spent cleaning up the beautiful foliage after it falls to the ground. Somehow that never seems to be in the picture of the ideal fall day, unless it involves joyous children playing in freshly raked piles of leaves.

I spent the major portion of yesterday cleaning up this beautiful mess; not in nice cool, crisp autumn air, but in warm windy and extremely dusty conditions. The laughter of children playing in the leaves was replaced by the noise of a leaf blower. There were times when I wondered why in the world I was doing this. Is this even worth the effort as leaves were continuing to fall as I was dealing with the ones on the ground?

After mulching leaves with the mower, blowing, then raking and carting leaves off to the back side of our place, I stopped to admire my work. What I saw was that there wasn’t a whole lot of difference between my yard and the yard of my next-door neighbor who has been in Texas for the last two weeks. I wondered, “What’s the point?”

This illustrates how we feel from time to time as Christians. We have an idea of what life in Christ should look like. We work to clean up our lives. We give attention and effort toward being different people. We stop and wipe our faces and look to see what progress we are making, but it doesn’t seem like we have made much headway.

Maybe it is our struggle with a particular persistent sin. We think we have that area of our lives cleaned up, but we get caught up in the temptation and find ourselves continuing to struggle. Maybe it is just with the issues of life that we face. We think, “If we could just get through this (whatever ‘this’ is) then things will be fine.” We get past that particular situation and then get hit with something else. It all seems too much. We wonder, “What’s the point?”

We need to know that we are not the only ones who have had this struggle. Others have had it. Others may be dealing with it right now. Paul speaks of this condition in his letter to the church in Rome.

“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So, I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:15-24)

Did we hear it? I know what I ought to do, but I don’t. I know what I shouldn’t do, but I do it anyway. We try and try and try but end up exhausted and wondering if we’ve made much progress. We have all had those seasons in life when we may wonder if there is any point in continuing to follow Jesus.

In these times we need to remember the rest of what Paul writes in this section of Romans. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 7:25-8:4)

“There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” What beautiful and comforting words! It doesn’t mean that we give in to sin and make no effort to clean up our lives; to give up trying or stop following Jesus. It does mean that because of what God has done in Christ Jesus our Lord, we don’t do this alone. On our own, we could never be clean enough, but forgiveness and cleansing are available. God is with us in the middle of this mess through the Holy Spirit who lives within us. That is the good news of the gospel. That’s the point. God wants to be with us and wants us to be with him. He wants this badly enough to make a way for it to happen, and to help us along the way. While we may feel that our feeble attempts are futile, or when we are disappointed in our progress, we need to be reminded that Jesus does not expect immediate perfection, but continued progress in being more and more like him.

For all of us who from time to time feel that our efforts are futile, my prayer is that we remember what God wants for us. I pray that when we are tempted to give up, throw in the towel (or the rake), and quit, we remember these words of Paul that close out Romans 8:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)