In the Garden

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our reading, titled In the Garden, was written by Allison Keita. My dad loved being outdoors in God's creation, camping, fishing, and rock hunting. He also enjoyed working in his yard and garden, but it took lots of work. He spent hours pruning, hoeing, planting seeds or flowers, pulling weeds, mowing the lawn, and watering the yard and garden.

The results were worth it—a landscaped lawn, tasty tomatoes, and beautiful peace roses. Every year, he pruned the roses close to the ground, and every year, they grew back, filling the senses with their fragrance and beauty. In Genesis, we read of the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived, thrived, and walked with God. There, God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. I imagine that perfect garden also included beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers, perhaps even roses, minus the thorns. After Adam and Eve's rebellion against God, they were expelled from the Garden and needed to plant and care for their own gardens, which meant breaking up hard ground, battling with thorns and other challenges. Yet God continued to provide for them, and He didn't leave humanity without the beauty of creation to draw us to Him. The flowers in the Garden remind us of God's continued love and promise of a renewed creation—symbols of hope and comfort. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Genesis chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, and chapter 3, verses 16 through 19. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden, and there He put the man He had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now picking up with chapter 3, verse 16. To the woman He said, I will make your pains and childbearing very severe. With painful labor you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. To Adam He said, Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat from it. First is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken. For dust you are, and to dust you will return. Let's pray. Dear God, we thank You for the many reminders of You in Your creation. Thank You for creating beauty among the thorns. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries. My name is Rachelle Traube. Thanks for listening.