“The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.”

Maybe it is because I was born in Kentucky and raised in Indiana where we annually had summer gardens, that I romanticize each year about the garden I can grow. I’ve had some good ones and some bad ones.  A lot of it is out of my control and it depends upon the weather, but I have to adapt and stay diligent to balance the influences and do my best to make sure the garden still yields.  I’ve often felt that leading and working in an organization is much like tending a garden.  We decide what we want to plant, we then ready the ground, then we plant, tend and later hopefully harvest.  Isn’t that similar to what we do everyday in business?  What garden are we growing and tending?

Man’s experience on Earth started in a garden and we were place here to tend and watch over it.  We can consider the garden our earth but we can also consider our garden the people and communities around us. We are God’s creation, like the plants, animals, seas and suns, and if we are to tend and watch over one, then aren’t we to tend and watch over all of God’s creations?  Consider today that in the heat of summer that God’s creations with whom we work and live might need some tending, some watering, and some help in removing weeds from their lives.  Consider today a good day to tend to the garden.

Reference: Genesis 2:15 (New Living Translation)