One of my favorite jokes is about the man who’s working in his flower garden. For years, he has toiled to make it into a showcase. One day, as he’s working, the local priest walks by and offers a compliment—“Ah, it’s amazing what God can do, isn’t it?” To which the gardener replies, “Father, you should have seen it when God had it to himself.”
Now I know some people take this as a reflection of the gardener’s sense of pride. But I see it a little differently.
There’s no doubt that God’s works of nature are indeed beautiful. And there are some that we can enjoy purely by themselves—there’s nothing we could do to improve them. (How, for example, could we improve on the scenery of a mountain range, or a sunset?)
But there are many things of beauty that we can help improve—and that, in fact, require our efforts—the garden is just one example. Here’s another: a happy marriage is a thing of beauty, and reflects God’s plan for mankind. Yet as anyone who is in a happy marriage can tell you, it doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a great deal of work to maintain. So while it is a gift from God, like so many others it has to be cultivated to get the most out of it.
And like so many other of God’s gifts, all that effort is worth it.
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