Tending your garden

In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, God gave Adam and Eve a beautiful garden and told  them to "tend" or "keep" the  garden He had given them.  The Message Bible says "to work the ground and keep it in order."  (Genesis 2:15)

I started thinking about that verse when I was out watering my flowers the other night after the sun started going down.  I love that time of day, when the sun is starting to set and the night creatures start talking to each other as they settle down to sleep.  I was thinking what a blessing it is to have a garden to "tend."  A garden left unatTENDed, won't give forth beautiful flowers, or vegetables.  The weeds eventually choke out all the beauty and all that is left is ugliness and chaos.

The next day, Tommy, John Thomas, and I were cleaning the house and that verse came to me again.  As I've mentioned before in my posts, each of us have a particular job for our day of cleaning.  I thought to myself that once again, we are "tending" what God has given us to enjoy.  If we don't tend to our living space, it soon becomes chaotic and downright nasty.  Little germs find lots of good hiding places and are just waiting to jump out and attack us the first chance they get.  

Things that are not "tended" get lost in all the mess.  One finds oneself spending more time looking for things than it would take to put them where they belonged in the first place!

When our living space is tended, we always have a nice straight bed to crawl into at night, because we made it first thing in the morning.

We have clean dishes when it comes time to cook a meal and we don't have to take time to wash dishes before we can even start to cook.

We don't run out of underwear because we washed and dried our clothes instead of letting them pile up so deep on the laundry room floor that we have to wade through them to get to the washing machine.

Once I let my mind go in that direction, I could think of all kinds of tending that goes on in this world that God has given us.  Helping our neighbor who has no one to help.  Taking care of children in other countries so that they have food to eat and clothing to wear.  

Sometimes our mouths need tending, and I don't just mean the dentist.  Although it could be that as well!  We have a dentist who comes under the bridge almost every week to pull teeth for the homeless.  Many times I have had to talk to someone and persuade them to go ahead and have their teeth pulled, because if they don't "tend" to their teeth, it could poison the rest of their body.

I want to be more aware of what I can do to tend the garden that God has put in my care.  If all of us do our part, what a wonderful world we will have!

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