Exercising good taste

2:31 p.m. Today's project was to finally get out to the garden and thin out the seedlings. I say "finally" because I have allowed a number of other tasks and activities to get in the way of tending the carrots, cilantro and scallions. Gardens are very forgiving unless it's blazing hot and you don't give them any water at all! God's creative miracle of growth is not easily halted, as witnessed by two pea vines, a nasturtium, corn stalk, tomato plant and three green bean plants that came up on their own from the compost. However, He does command humans, starting with Adam, to "tend the garden and keep it." (Genesis 2:15) If we want to harvest food, we have to exercise due diligence!

I had woken up a little stiff and sore, probably from using our Health Rider, a clever piece of exercise equipment that burns a remarkable number of calories per minute by moving one's arms and legs strenuously, and would have used it again today, adding more minutes than yesterday. But I thought, "Gardening is good exercise, and even if plucking up tiny plants doesn't burn many calories, hoeing out two rows for irrigation certainly will!"

Steve and I went outside, to the great joy of Bailey and Jada, our yellow labs. He got the "vibrating gopher repeller" to function once again and put it back into the soil, ensuring that gophers for one square mile would be put to flight ($17.99 at Home Depot). I squatted down and worked my way through the needle-like scallions, about three inches long at most. I tossed the "rejects" behind me to decompose into the soil of a future garden, leaving a "survivor" about every inch or so.

Marveling at the perfection of the tiny seedlings, which already had a minute bulb, like a real onion, I sniffed one and inhaled an onion scent! I thought, "I'll just toss these onto my salad today," and gathered them up after the irrigation rows were dug and irrigated.

As I ponder the tasty baby scallions, I can't help but think of our God who does nothing by halves! His every design is flawless, from the microscopic cells that formed us at the beginning of our lives, to the finished--or not-so-finished--person we are today. It's up to man to bring to fruition God's intention for the millions of species in His universe, to glorify Him by prayerfully and humbly exercising dominion over His works so generously provided for our benefit.

Psalm 8:3-6 says, "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet."

I am honored, Lord! May I serve You faithfully all of my days.