What needs to fall away in your life before new life can begin?

Tomorrow, our team will organise an Adventure Day outdoor activity for the youth in our church. I’ve been given the opportunity to lead a creative outdoor activity, and over the past few days I’ve been considering different directions the workshop could take.

Eventually, I felt drawn to a simple theme: letting go of something in order to embrace new seeds of hope and make room for new things in a new season.

Over the past six months of prayerful hiking and seeking God for solutions to different problems, I have learned something important: sometimes the solution doesn’t come until we let go of something that is preventing an inner change.

Sometimes it is a hidden desire we are reluctant to surrender. Sometimes it is an offence we have been carrying for too long, festering like an infected wound in the heart. Sometimes it is our stubborn insistence on being right about something that, in the bigger picture, may not matter nearly as much as we think it does.

Whatever the issue may be, God has all the time in the world. We, however, often rush. We become nervous. We ask for immediate answers and sometimes bring irrational demands to God. Yet perhaps some of our prayers remain in the waiting room until we are ready to let go of the old.

I have discovered some of my own areas of feeling stuck while walking through nature. In the quiet of forests and mountains, I have often found myself noticing things I would have overlooked in the noise of everyday life. Nature has become a place where I encounter wisdom about life—wisdom written into the Creator’s laws and cycles.

And now we are entering autumn. Trees are changing colour. Leaves are beginning to fall. What once seemed so alive and necessary is being released.

A fallen leaf may look like something that has simply died. But its story does not end there. As it breaks down on the ground, it returns nutrients to the soil, preparing it for winter’s rest and, eventually, for new life in spring.

Perhaps some things in our lives work the same way. There are things we may need to let go of—not because they were necessarily bad, but because their season has ended. So I want to invite you to join me on a prayer walk in nature.

As you walk, slow down. Pay attention to what you see around you. Look at the trees and the leaves. Ask God, like a child asking a loving Father:

“What do I need to let go of?”

Don’t rush to find an answer. Walk. Pray. Listen. Let God show you.

And when something comes to mind, express it creatively. Maybe collect a fallen leaf and write a word or phrase on it. Draw something. Take a photograph. Write a short poem or prayer. Whatever form it takes, let your creative expression become a way of acknowledging what you are ready to release.

And then, if you feel comfortable, share it with someone else. You can share your creative expression in the comments below, or send me a private message through the contact section of the website.

Let’s journey together into a new season—not by holding more tightly to what is old, but by learning when to open our hands and let it fall.

What needs to fall away in your life before new life can begin?

Check some of my creative expression from creative reflections in Seeds of Hope section.