Then the word of the Lord came to me, asking, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I replied, “I see a branch of an almond tree.” The Lord said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I watch over My word to accomplish it.” (Jeremiah 1:11-12 HCSB)

My favorite time of year is the fall. I’m energized by the cool weather, crisp air, colorful landscape, and the coming of SEC football. The season swells with holiday romance and the promise of peace on earth, good will toward man.

Ironically, fall also is the worst time of year for me, and I know I’m not alone in such sentiment. The promise of all good things violently collides with the reality of broken dreams and irretrievable relationships. Over the years, I’ve been to more family funerals and hospital waiting rooms between Oct. 1 and Jan. 1 than any other time of year. I feel relieved when the “ghost of Christmas” is truly past.

Yet, in even the worst of these moments, I wait for the signs of spring. I can’t say I always wait patiently or with God-infused grace, but God has given me a consistent reminder of his faithfulness: The seasons come and go as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, and God set the seasons in motion as a way of saying, “Year in and year out, you trust the seasons to return, now trust me to be just as faithful.”

In a vision, God explained this to the poet Jeremiah:

“Then the word of the Lord came to me, asking, ‘What do you see, Jeremiah?’ I replied, ‘I see a branch of an almond tree.’ The Lord said to me, ‘You have seen correctly, for I watch over my word to accomplish it.’” (Jeremiah 1:11-12 HCSB)

More than likely, God chose the almond for his illustration because in Israel it is traditionally the first tree to bloom, signaling the arrival of spring. Jeremiah would know it as the “watch tree” because it was the tree you watched as you waited for the season of new life.

As God teaches Jeremiah, there is good-natured humor in his play on words (more evident in the Hebrew). In a sense, the exchange goes like this:

- God of all creation: Jeremiah, what do you see?

- Jeremiah: I see a branch from the “watch” tree.

- God of all creation: That’s right! Use it as a reminder that I “watch” over my word, that I am constantly at work whether or not you can see what I’m doing.

The ebb and flow of the seasons are greeting cards from God, reminding us that things are not always as they seem. We tend to live by sight and not by faith, but God is patiently teaching us to do it the other way around – live by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV)

What now?

· Trust the one who created the seasons – We trust the seasons to return every year; the challenge is to trust the one who created the seasons. God spoke the world into existence; he hung the moon and the stars; he spoke you into your mother’s womb; he is active in your life, even if you don’t see or understand what he’s doing. If you truly believed that, how would you respond differently to your circumstances?

· Keep your hope in God, not what you see – A tree may appear barren in winter, but that doesn’t mean it’s not alive. That’s why we call it the dead of winter! Trust in God and not your sight: “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” (Romans 8:24-25 NIV) God says the Spirit will help us in our weakness. Pray, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”

· You don’t have to understand – Read this sentence three times: “The Truth is not dependent on my ability to understand what is going on.” (OK, go back and really repeat it three times!) Let God interpret the facts; let him explain the situation. Meanwhile, focus on God and not on your limited ability to understand events or circumstances. “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18 NIV)

· Spring is coming – This season in your life will change. There will be new life. Remind yourself that spring is coming. When you feel anxiety about the holidays or dreariness during winter, explain to someone else that spring is coming. Jesus did walk out of the tomb on the third day; he is resurrected and alive, and if he has conquered death, he’s got a handle on any situation you are facing.

God doesn’t desire more of our time sometimes; he desires more of our attention all the time.

Ever feel frustrated because you hear messages about getting closer to God and you definitely desire this for yourself, but you are inundated with so much to do already that this only makes you feel guilty because you are too busy for God? I think we all feel this at one time or another.

Some of you may need to carve some time out of your busy schedule for more specific time to be with God, but that isn’t necessarily the only answer to this question. Look at the following Scriptures:

“I have set the Lord always before me.” Psalm 16:8 NIV
“My eyes are ever on the Lord.” Psalm 25:15 NIV
“I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.” Psalm 34:1 NIV

Reading these words makes you wonder if these are the words of a monk who had nothing else to do but devote himself to God. Actually, they are the words of David, king of Israel, a great ruler and warrior. How did he manage to run a nation and keep his eyes on the Lord at all times? The only conclusion is that he did this while he did everything else. It’s a continual awareness of God that we are talking about here, not necessarily more time devoted to spiritual pursuits.

I once saw a sign that read: “Your god is what you pay attention to.” You see, I believe you can pay attention to God while you are doing everything else. It’s all about doing everything for God and seeing God in everything we do. It’s about bringing God into the boardroom, the exercise room, the living room, and the bedroom. Now of course he’s already in all these places but we’re talking about being aware of his being there at all times. That’s what it means to set the Lord always before us.

Worship is a frame of mind that always has God in the picture. We don’t need church, or Bible study, or devotions to remind us about the Lord if we’re already aware of him all the time. These opportunities then become more precious to us because we can devote all our attention to that which we have been aware of all along.

“For no one can ever be made right in God's sight by doing what his law commands. For the more we know God's law, the clearer it becomes that we aren't obeying it. But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight—not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago.” (Romans 3:20-21 NLT)

Brett Favre, the lion-hearted quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, is one of my favorite players in the National Football League. He’s courageous and tough-minded, showing a rare grace under pressure, yet his boyish enthusiasm for the game is infectious as he celebrates each Packer success.

A couple of Sundays ago (Sept. 30), Brett threw a pass that set a new record: the most touchdown passes by an NFL quarterback – 421.

Although the Pack was playing in Minnesota, the officials temporarily stopped the game in order to honor Brett’s achievement. And Brett, in his customary humility, later said he was more interested in a team win than an individual record.

In surprising contrast, the very next week (Oct. 8) Brett tied another record: the most interceptions thrown by an NFL quarterback – 277. This game also was stopped after this record was achieved, but only because the interception ended the Packer’s last-second attempt to win the game.

The most touchdown passes and the most interceptions! It reminds me that there was a time when Babe Ruth, the baseball player who was one of the greatest hitters in the game, owned two records simultaneously: the most home runs hit in a career as well as the most strike-outs in a career.

Here’s the thing: We tend to think of life as a balance sheet that we’ll eventually present to God. As long as the number of our touchdown passes exceed the number of our interceptions, then we’re cool with God, right? To echo the Apostle Paul, God forbid this to be true!

“For no one can ever be made right in God's sight by doing what his law commands. For the more we know God's law, the clearer it becomes that we aren't obeying it.” (Romans 3:20 NLT)

In other words, we can never be made right by throwing touchdown passes – because the more we learn about the Law, the more obvious it is we can never throw enough touchdown passes to make things right with God.

“But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight—not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago.” (Romans 3:21 NLT)

In his own geek-Greek way, Paul is saying we should forget the balance sheet – ignore the scoreboard, give up on tracking good and bad statistics. Listen, there is good news! There’s another way to get right in God’s sight, and it has nothing to do with your own achievements. It’s based on a promise made by God long ago – a promise is fulfilled through Jesus Christ.

Can I get an amen?

We are saved by grace and not through faith. It is a gift from God, not by our own works, so that none of us can boast of the ability to tip the balance sheet in our own favor. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

No doubt you’ve heard this over and over again, including many times in these devotionals. Yet many of us still live as if we get right in God’s sight by what we do – by our works, our achievements, the records we set.

We do this because it is, as Paul says, an offense to think of the Gospel as so simple and, therefore, it becomes a stumbling block to our pride. Getting right in God’s sight by what we do appeals to our human pride, or as the poet-king James would say, it appeals to our “flesh.”

It makes us feel good, as if we’re doing something to earn our way into heaven. If we cling to the idea that we can, even in some small way, contribute toward our salvation, then we also can cling to the idea that maybe we’re not that bad – maybe we aren’t included in the “all” of “all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.”

Put that behind you and get on with the truth: You, my friend, can never be made right in God's sight by doing what is right – because the closer you get to God, the more you’ll realize you’re not even close to getting it right (see Isaiah 6 and Romans 3:20).

The one thing you can do is to move in loving obedience to your gracious heavenly Father, doing and saying whatever he tells you to do and say; allowing your life to be energized by God’s Spirit within you.

What now?

· “Balance sheet” fear – Good news! You are free to follow the Father instead of living in “balance sheet” fear. You can be who you were meant to be and you can live how you were meant to live. You don’t have to be good enough – you just have to trust in the redemptive power of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. And you don’t have to fear if you hold both the record for most touchdown passes and the record for most interceptions – love God and live accordingly!

· Record of faith – A record of your faith in Jesus is more important than any record of your wrongs or resume of your achievements. If you haven’t already done this, set a spiritual marker as a reminder that you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Write it down – or establish some other kind of tangible memorial for this event – and every time the devil tells you you’ll never be good enough for God, or that you’re so good you can remain independent of God, take him to that marker and remind him that you are right in God’s sight because of Jesus.

· Big play – Next time you’re watching a sporting event and one of the players makes the big play, turn to the person next to you and say, “That was a great play, but it won’t make him right in God’s sight.”

· Huge error – Likewise, next time you’re watching a sporting event and one of the players makes a huge erro, turn to the person next to you and say, “That was a huge error, but the good news is it won’t keep him from getting right in God’s sight.”

· Pray for others – Ask God to show you who to pray for, related to getting right in God’s sight. It may be a non-believer or someone who believes but struggles in this area. Pray that this person will know God’s “different way of being right in his sight—not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago (Romans 3:21 NLT) And pray that Brett Favre and his family will come to know this truth, so that when he retires from football he can spend the rest of his life preaching how to be right in God’s sight.