Make it Beautiful

Spring is sprung,
The grass is riz,
I wonder where
The flowers is

That little poem is on a beautiful handmade mug a dear friend gave me. My kids have memorized it and say it often with a smile.

Spring has in fact sprung. And so have the projects around the farm. There is a never ending list of things to be repaired, changed, built, painted, planted, and on and on.

Someone told us once that we wouldn’t feel settled for at least five years. Well, it’s been 8 and we are still drowning in things to do. But we love it.

I started wondering recently while painting our chicken coop, why do we make lists of things on our property to fix up or change or make better. The answer came to me as I’ve been studying Genesis and Revelation.

Where did God put Adam and Eve? In a beautiful, perfect garden, of course. We all know that answer. Think about it though. They were in the most perfect setting where God dwelt with them. Everything they looked at, every tree, every flower, every animal was beautiful and breath-taking. There was perfection all around them. And when they sinned and were forced to leave that beauty, they spent the rest of their lives striving to make their new home as beautiful and perfect as Eden.

And ever since then, we’ve all toiled and striven to return the earth to its former glory. There is, deep within each of us, a longing for beauty.

I think that’s part of why so many have turned to homesteading, gardening, having animals, and working on their land. We all want to be in that beautiful, perfect garden again. And someday, we will be. Revelation tells us that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. We don’t know exactly what it all will look like. John tells us about the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21 and there is a tree that bears 12 fruits, one for each month. I’m sure there will be amazing gardens with unbelievable plants and animals. The new Jerusalem sounds awesome, like nothing any of us could create. There will once again be beauty all around us.

For now, God has given us this little patch of dirt on a windy prairie to make beautiful. He tells us in Luke 19 to occupy until his return. We should be good stewards with what he’s given us, using our money, time, land, and resources wisely and to his glory. I thought while I was painting, does it really matter that the chicken coop had tan siding? It was free but high quality siding so we put it to good use. But, I really enjoy looking at things that are beautiful and that coordinate. So, yes, it does matter. The chicken coop and the shed on our property are now white with blue siding, opposite of our house. And it truly looks lovely when you come in the driveway and see it all together.

Proverbs 21:25 states, “The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor.”

We are not called to be idle or lazy.

So, we are called to work. And we have an innate desire to make things beautiful and lovely.

And so, we make the to-do lists and we schedule the projects for sunny and rainy days. We prioritize what needs to get done and we switch gears and repair what’s broken. And, we’ll do it until the Lord calls us home or creates that new earth for us.