Compost

Psalm 77:11-12

"I shall remember the deeds of the Lord; surely I shall remember Your wonders of old. I will meditate on all Your work and muse on Your deeds."

I was on my usual walk around the lake at lunch, contemplating my thankful thing for the day, when I noted the dead leaves on the ground. I was not particularly thankful for them that moment, but God purposed them for something. So I considered: how I could be thankful for dead leaves? I remembered gathering the decomposing leaves from my grape vine a few days earlier. I had marveled at how quickly they had begun to decompose and at what great compost it would make; I promptly added it to my composter. Thinking about compost made me wonder...

God did not create things to die at the outset - death entered the scene when sin did. How did dead leaves fit in? Did God originally make the trees without leaves that fell and died? Since the Bible says He created all plants and creeping things on the earth, He must have already created each species, including the bacteria that process dead leaves, as well as the trees whose leaves fall. This is not to say God couldn’t have created their leaves to be evergreen and it wasn't a result of sin. In which case, if the bacteria didn’t eat the leaves, did they eat something else, like all of today’s meat-eaters? I really don’t know. I can’t imagine a world without Fall, but God could have done anything. It was fun to consider!

Either way, it is all part of God’s grand design. If sin caused the leaves to die, then God caused it to work for good, since the bacteria process the leaves into compost to replenish the ground with nutrients. If God originally designed it that way... well, then God originally designed it so, and that in itself is pretty amazing. God’s imagination is truly something to behold.

I am thankful for compost, that God designed a use for the aftermath of the beautiful Fall season. I am thankful, too, that God gave us compost as a tool to better work the earth He gave us.

What causes you to ponder more about God - whether it has no real consequence or is crucial?