Evidence of care — Hearts & Hands

8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 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.

Genesis 2:8-9

Once upon a time, I (Dan Jaspersen) was chatting with my brother (Jason) on the phone. As we talked, Jason was working on correcting projects from his Art History students. At some point along our meandering conversation I asked him, “What are you looking for in these projects?”

He signed quietly and replied, “Evidence of care.”

Ok, let’s talk about that. Above, we have the brief description of God’s design for the Garden of Eden. I believe this short chunk of scripture is loaded with evidence of care. Stay with me.

The LORD planted a garden. What is the difference between a garden and the wilderness? After all, the rest of creation is not described as a garden, so I’m assuming it was wild. A garden is designed, it has intention and it’s orderly. We can gather from this that God is orderly. We can see this is orderliness in every part of his creation.

That’s our first piece of evidence. Order.

I’m not a trained linguist, but as I understand the Hebrew language approach to list building, the thing that comes first is the most important thing in the list. In our reading, we have a brief list, two items. God made all types of tree grow, 1) trees which were pleasing to the eye and 2) trees which were good for food.

Of what value are trees which are pleasing to the eye? They are beautiful. Beauty is food for the soul. Beauty is our second piece of evidence.

Trees which produce food. This one is easy, right? Abundance. Daily Bread. God feeds our physical bodies too.

Before the fall into sin, before the need for a Savior, we have this little insight into how God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth cared for his masterpiece - mankind. He showed his care through Order, Beauty, and Abundance.

This is our God. This is the evidence of the care of the Almighty. He provides for our souls and our bodies.

(BTW - this is a very fun lens to read other parts of Scripture through. Consider for a moment that as Jesus executed his various miracles that he was reinstating heavenly order to that specific situation. For example, when he calmed the storm, Jesus is leveraging the Orderliness of the cosmos. He (Jesus) is God, and the storm is under His command - Order. Another example is the feeding of 5000 people. This one is easy - Abundance. All of the accounts of miracles can be read through this lens.)