Tend the Land

God put us in the land and told us to tend it.

We have a lot of tending to do I noticed walking through a parking lot the other day.

We will always be cleaning up after other people, but we need first to begin cleaning up after ourselves. If we can keep our allotment of land orderly (front porch, driveway, sidewalk, garage, barn, shed, bathroom, etc.); it will foster in the eyes of others the care of your ‘land’, and just might motivate them to tend their land better.

‘It’s not my trash, it flew out of the trash truck and landed in my yard!’ ‘I didn’t break the glass bottle on the street in front of my house, somebody else did!’

We’re sending signals to others around us how we do things in our land. Let’s send good signals that we are clean, neat, tidy, orderly, caring and respectful people. We will have to send these signals repeatedly, daily, over and over. That’s just the way it is. But it is worth it! You will feel better because you were helpful and did something good. Indirectly, others will feel better because things are orderly.

We individually can’t tidy up the whole world, but we can tend our small ‘plot of land’.

What do I need to tend to today on my land?

Hope

A fixed mindset has no hope.  It has lost its hope.

“There can be no change; Things will always be this way; There’s nothing I can do about it; It’s too late; Things are too bad; It’s gone on too long to see anything different; They’ll never change…”

It has no hope of a different future, a different tomorrow, a different you!

Hope is the propeller on the airplane of life that pulls us forward. We can guide it wherever we want to go when the engine is running.

Hope is freedom; an optimistic view of a new and brighter future; of change; a better tomorrow; a different way of doing things; freedom from the ruts in life… in your life!

Hope is one thing God has given mankind that no matter how bad things become, no matter what has been done, God can fix it. He can cause new growth. He is in the restoration business. There is aways hope. If you only have an ounce of strength or courage, He will give you more. If you feel there’s only a tiny bit of life left in you, He will fan it into flame.

Ask Him to blow on you.

The Eye of Beauty

Can you see it? See what? See beauty around you!

It’s not a foreign word, although in some ways it seems disregarded.

Just what is beauty? It is seen in many ways…

Calm; color; vibrancy; order; cleanliness; clarity; detail; simplicity…

Beauty comes by inspiration – meaning God-breathed. Everything God made was beautiful. It had order, rhyme and reason – purpose to it. He breathed it out with his words, and it became. He spoke us into existence and said, ‘Go tend the garden…you’re made in My image…make more life, perpetuate it. Feed it. Encourage it. Take it and make it wherever you go. Be inspired by what I’ve done. I will inspire you to make more beauty.’

If we look closely at what God made, we will develop an eye for beauty. True beauty lasts. It is deeper than looks only.

Beauty brings comfort, peace, calm, joy, hope, encouragement, trust, relaxation, contentment…

How do you feel when you look at something beautifully made? Does it inspire you to make something beautiful or do something beautiful? It can become contagious.

By beauty, I don’t mean pretty. Beauty has an uplifting element to it…a nobility if you will, in that it causes you to notice it, and brings a surge of hopefulness.

I don’t understand how it all works, but it does.

What do you see and how does it affect you?