God the Creator spoke nature into existence, yet he didn’t intend for it to live in its natural state without attention.

So he made man to accompany the Lord in his work, to nurture what was in raw form.

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. – Genesis 2:15 (NIV)

Nurturing’s concise definition on m-w.com is “the care and attention given to someone or something that is growing or developing.”

The man walked with God, cared for the earth God created and God tended to the man’s needs.

A beautiful cycle.

Though sin entered the pictured, it still works this way. And as long as we draw breath, we continue growing. Isn’t that great news? We don’t have to atrophy, let dust settle on us or harden from disuse. With God, there is always work that will keep us moving forward, whether we are moving faster or slower, we can always move forward.

With God as the gardener and tender of our souls, we as his creation continue to tend and steward his beloved earth, not as an object of worship, but in obedience to one of Adam’s first mandates to tend what God left until God closes the chapter on the story of human history.

Nurturing begets nurture. God created the concept, exemplified it and asks us to perpetuate it in our flesh-and-blood families as well as our spiritual community.

Who doesn’t like being nurtured to maturity and offering nurture to others?

Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics once said that everyone wears an invisible sign that says, “Make me feel important.”

She was a believer in Jesus, a wonderful business owner, and a nurturer.

I am not sure where the famous chef Mario Batali stands spiritually, but his words ring true, “Are we Darwinists – where we live and let live? Or are we nurturing as a society? There has to be a standard of living that we decide to support.”*

God included wonderful immortal self-obvious traits in his design of every human, making everything beautiful in its time, I believe, through his nurturing loving hand (Ecclesiastes 3:1, Isaiah 28:26 & 48:17). The question is: What am I nurturing; how am I using the raw stuff of life God gave me to perpetuate God’s story more fully, beautifully and truthfully?

God is the ultimate gardener of our souls, nurturing us with the living water of Jesus who is also the bread of life (John 4:10, John 7:38, John 6:35, 48). He gives us hope in our most trying times and soars with us in success.

Amazing!

*brainyquote.com