Manifold Witness

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.

Great is Thy Faithfulness.  One of the great hymns that tells the story of the faithfulness of our Almighty God.  Where ours may waver, His stands strong.  Where we have good days and bad days, His days never change.  All the seasons, all of nature, as a matter of fact stands to testify that our God loves you.  He has mercy for you, and He will never let you down.

Let's call our first witness to the stand.  The bumblebee.  Mr. Bumblebee, do you swear to tell the the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?  "I do."  First off, from an engineering standpoint, in the 1930's a French entomologist said that flight for the bumblebee should be impossible.  No one mentioned that to the bumblebee.  The bee continues to fly.  

Here we have a bumblebee pollenating the flower stalks on a Genovese Basil plant.  Bees absolutely love the flowers on the basil.  I generally pluck off the flowers, to keep the basil growing so we can make more and more pesto.  Thanks to the bees for pollenating and making our crops more productive.

The bumblebees' ability to defy the rules of physics and be able to make our crop yields increase is a positive testimony of God's goodness and love.

 The sugar snap peas I planted are popping up along the big trellis.  Soon they'll be climbing up the cattle panel.  They have tendrils that will reach out and like springs, attach themselves to the trellis, anchoring themselves while they grow upward.  When the strong winds blow, those tendrils serve as an anchor that gives, but doesn't break.  The sugar snap peas lean on the trellis for support.  The witness of the sugar snap pea provides testimony that we can lean on the Everlasting Arms where we'll be safe and secure from all alarms.  And while the peas cling, they climb and they bloom and they are fruitful - just as we should.

The Good Book tells us that, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."  A seed is dead.  I saved the cucumber seed below since 2016.  I had them stored in an ibuprofen bottle labeled with the variety name (Boston Pickling) and date in a drawer under our laundry room sink.  

I took that dead seed and planted it in the ground and watered it and look what happened?  The resulting cucumber plant bears witness to the fact that its seed was put into the ground and now grows and will soon bear much fruit, bearing manifold witness to the Creator.  

And the eggplant.  What a beautiful bloom the eggplant has.  As you walk around the garden and see the blooms on the eggplant, you know that a harvest of eggplant is on the way.  It doesn't happen overnight.  You must be patient.  While you wait on the harvest, you can enjoy the beauty of the eggplant flower.  Another eyewitness account of our Lord and His Providence.  He gives us strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow!

Great is Thy faithfulness!

Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see:

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!