Shrink-wrapped and Priced to Sell

One of my neighbors plants her vegetable garden in the front of her house, along the sidewalk where a large number of children pass by as they walk to school.  Her purpose is two-fold.  It is partly because of the ravenous red squirrels who have established totalitarian control of our backyards.  Nothing is sacred to them.  There is no defense against their scheming minds.  In fact, I believe, they actually enjoy the challenges we place in their paths.  (Exhibit #1:  my bird feeder)

My neighbor's other reason for her tastefully arrayed vegetable garden -- indeed  a work of art -- is to reveal truth to the school children who will pass that way hundreds of times in the course of the school year.  "So they will know where vegetables really come from," she once explained to me.  Fruit and vegetables do not suddenly and mysteriously originate shrink-wrapped at the grocery.  They are intentionally planted, nurtured, weeded, fertilized, and harvested by farmers.  There is a lot of time, sweat and work involved.  It is an incredible process.  And it doesn't just happen.

I see the children in springtime, watching the seeds planted and the tiny seedlings coming up through the soil.  I have noticed the children during the summer, whizzing past on their scooters and bikes, glancing at the growing plants and sometimes unrecognizable vegetables.  ("What is THAT???" I heard one little boy ask his mom).  As the vegetables grow over the course of the season, I even see the boys, girls, and their parents stop and point out what is now apparent, watching as if they can see the growth day by day.  Always, there is a sunflower or two towering overhead, those which appear to grow six inches a day.

By mid-August when school begins again, there is an amazing arrangement of vegetables, sometimes a hidden zucchini as long as your arm.  Every year as autumn progresses, the children watch with excitement the pumpkins grow and ripen.  And the birds flock to the nodding heads of the sunflowers which provide seeds for months to come.

Whenever I have the opportunity to spend time with our own young grandchildren, I intentionally point out the splendor of nature -- the sun, moon, the light show of stars, the tiny little handprints of the raccoon, the birds of many colors and their special songs, and the brilliance of trees in all seasons.  On their last visit, we discovered even along the asphalt driveway, tiny little wild strawberries.  Imagine that, strawberries not in a plastic box!

I want them to know where these things come from.  They are not just there, but designed and nurtured by God, the Creator of the Universe, maker of heaven and earth and you.  There was a lot of imagination and power involved.   These wonders that surround us on all sides did not just happen.  Nature is just one of the ways God reveals Himself to us, just one of the ways we know who He is.

And what only He can do.

For thus says the LORD,
who created the heavens
(He is God!),
who formed the earth and made it,
(He did not create it a chaos,
He formed it to be inhabited!):
"I am the LORD,
and there is no other."

                         Isaiah 45.18