Toll Roads & Trees

Life in God’s Garden

The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.  And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Genesis 2:8-9

I drive 5 days a week on a toll road.  So if you are like me and drive 30 or so miles a day twice a day, you have plenty of time to observe what’s on the toll road.  All summer long I have watched road crews planting.  I am not talking about a few trees here and there.  Every day there would be 10 to 20 flats of potting soil stacked in rows along the side of the road.  So if I had to calculate how many large bags of potting soil were on a flat I would say it was probably 24 stacked 6 deep and there would be 10 to 20 in a row lined along the side of the road.  So if you take 24 bags times 10 you have 240 bags of potting soil per section of highway.  Bet you didn’t think you would get a math lesson this early in the morning.

Anyway, I started thinking about the plants that were stacked on the side of the road.  Instead of taking you through the math again, I will just say that there were literally hundreds of various types of plants stacked along the side of the road waiting to be planted.  There were sage bushes, various types of long grasses, cedar trees, flowering bushes and any number of plants that I didn’t even recognize. 

I don’t really understand this concept.  If I am driving down the freeway to and from work, I really don’t care that there are beautiful flowering plants in the medians.  It would be different if I was going to have a picnic or something in the median, but I really don’t need beautiful medians.  I would have preferred they transplanted the trees that were already there instead of ripping them out with a bulldozer.  I would much rather see a reduction in the amount of the tolls that I am paying each month, instead the tolls went up in July.  I am thinking this is to pay for the plants and trees they are planting on the side of the road plus all the great potting soil. 

I really appreciate the sign at the end of the toll road that I drive on that reads “Thank You for Driving the NTTA”.   Really it should read “Thank you for helping us plant beautiful landscaping for 30 miles.” 

We live in a wasteful society.  When our city built a new Super Target where the old one used to be, they literally came in and took a bulldozer and demolished every tree in the parking lot.  These were not small trees since they had been there for years. So they bulldozed all the trees and replaced them with you guessed it, “new trees”.  Now instead of me going to target and parking under the shade of a large tree in 105 degree temperatures, I can park next to a short bush that will take 10 more years to grow into a tree that offers shade. 

God created a perfect balance for us to inhabit earth and we are making a real mess of what He gave us. 

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, You created everything on earth and I don’t always appreciate Your majesty through the very things you created.  Help me to live as a tree bearing fruit that is worthy of You.  I praise Your Name above all others.  

Scripture: John Preaches to the People

Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”  Luke 3:7-9