Celebrate the hope of transforming our nation through prayer with a devotion from the NIV God’s Word for Gardeners Bible and may God bless America!
Tools of National Peace
They will beat their swords into plowshares. ~Micah 4 :3
Read: Micah 4:3 – 5
Oil & Sharpen with: Psalm 128:1 – 6; Ecclesiastes 5:19 – 20; James 4:1 – 3
The time comes to stop fighting and start working; gardeners and farmers, we can be encouraged that our garden tools are at the heart of the Bible’s imagery for such a time of peace (verse 3; Ecclesiastes 3:8). Peaceful times are working times, and our occupations of preparing the soil for crops, pruning fruit trees and grapevines, taking care so that all is in order for bearing fruit, lead the way in recovering from times of war.
Dad never called what he did organic farming but it was: The farm was full of life, full of many lives that worked to grow more life that would then sustain others’ lives. — David Mas Masumoto, Wisdom of the Last Farmer, 2009
God’s Word gives a wonderful precedent for the establishment of peace: Everyone will have their own land to work — fields, vineyards, orchards or community garden plots that represent the provision of God to the individual (Micah 4:4). In other words, a happy, peaceful, prosperous nation begins at ground level, an assembly of individual people, each working with gladness of heart (Ecclesiastes 5:20), embracing the rigors of their own livelihood without coveting another’s (Exodus 20:17; James 4:2). God’s word pictures the fruitful household, its goodness around the family dinner table (Psalm 128:3), critical components of peace for the whole nation of Israel (Psalm 128:6).
Passing the bean-and-barely stew, the crew make it clear that . . . they’re motivated by a love of farming and by a belief that small, local community farms hold the prospect of a better future for the world and for them. Sharing the daily gleanings at a long picnic table feels almost sacred. — Carol Ness, Slow Food Nation’s Come to the Table, edited by Katrina Heron, 2008
Prayer: O merciful God, you show me how important are the tools in my hand; my personal work endeavors bless my nation with security and peace. Whatever tools I need, I will ask you for (James 4:2). Purify me from the tendency to envy my neighbors and take from them instead of simply asking you. Your vision of “world peace” begins with you and me and my garden tools.
This excerpt appears in the Garden Tools section of the book as part of a week’s essays on Peace, page 1034.
