Every day on my way to school, my mom would drive down this long, winding road surrounded by trees. They were trees that most beautifully illustrated the change in season the Northeastern United States experiences. Autumn was my favorite of the four—as the green leaves slowly transformed to red, yellow, brown, and orange.

It is now that time of year again. Sweaters are back in my closet, pumpkin spice flavored products line the shelves at the store, and the next task on my to-do list is to schedule my apple picking trip for the season at a local farm.

Something as routine to us as the change in season, in actuality, is a great sign of Allah’s involvement in this world. We have zero control over the changes in temperature and weather forecasts of the day, just as we have zero power to make a fruit grow from a tree or a plant from a seed. This fact is something Allah describes exactly in the Quran: “And have you seen that [seed] which you sow? Is it you who makes it grow or are We the grower? If We willed, We could make it [dry] debris and you would remain in wonder” (Q. 56:63-65).

Here we see Allah rhetorically posing the question about growing a plant from a seed. Yes, we may place the seed in the ground then give it water and sunlight and care, but we do not decide whether there will sprout a plant from that seed. That part of the process is totally out of our control. It is an aspect of life we have simply come to accept, while overlooking that the actual force which causes it to grow is God. The next verse states God could have just as easily made the seed amount to dirt, and we would remain clueless as to what went wrong.

With a commonplace and observable example such as this that God presents in the Quran, we can see how much of a role He plays in our everyday life. We purchase our fruit from the grocery store for a few dollars, but we do not once think about how this fruit came into existence. We may look for the locally grown or organic produce, but there is much more to it. Its presence in our life is only from God.

As you see the colors of the trees changing around you and smell the freshly baked apple pie in your oven as you warm up in your sweater over these next few weeks of fall, make sure you take a moment to remember that these blessings and changes did not simply originate out of nothing.