Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”
NL Daily Devotion for Friday, August 20, 2021
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
The other day, my adult son was tending to his vegetable garden. In particular, he was dealing with the way his pumpkin vine had sent out tiny, curling tendrils that had wrapped around a nearby rosebush and raised the pumpkin leaves closer to the sun. As he pried the tendrils away from the rosebush, he marveled at the way a supposedly mindless plant had managed to figure out how to do this thing. How did it know where to attach? How did it pull itself upward? I just said to him, “And that’s why I was a biology major.” I, too, frequently find myself utterly astonished at the fascinating and even bizarre ways nature has evolved to thrive and flourish.
Of course, I am both an evolutionist and a Christian who believes that ultimately, everything is God’s creation. So like the psalmist, I am blown away by the work of God’s fingers. And I do wonder how it is that a God who has created a world this spectacular can be mindful of little old me. Who hasn’t stood in nature or under the stars and felt terribly insignificant? And yet to God we are anything but. If God can give life and purpose to the tiny tendrils of a pumpkin vine, God can give life and purpose to God’s human children. And that’s a beautiful thing.
What astonishes me most about God’s creation?
![1 Kings 17:1-16 [17-24], God’s Care for the Widow](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56b39b61ab48de92d991a40a/bf37035e-33d5-439f-a0d6-a68b02d0f1bc/24-11-03.jpg)
