The Protector of All

O God, the protector of all those who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy, that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal; grant this, heavenly Father, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

I am watching tomatoes ripen on our deck and it is one of the most exciting and slowest growing of joys. The blackberries along the fence line are even slower. We were gone a few days several weeks ago and I made sure to ask folks to check and see if they would ripen while we were away. We came back and found them as green as we left them. That was weeks ago! Still, every morning, I pull open our sliding door in my pajamas and peek at the vines, hoping to gather buckets of ripe blackberries. And every morning I find them only marginally redder and then I have to ask myself if I’ve imagined any change at all. But, today, I walked out onto our deck and there it was– nestled underneath a floppy green leaf: the most beautiful, plump and juicy cherry tomato hanging from its stem in bright, red glory!

I find myself considering how almost impossible it seems that any fruit can survive from planting to growing to blooming to fruiting to ripening to picking and being indulged as food. Exposed to bugs and squirrels and tiny toddler hands and storms and the sun/shade mix controlled by the pecan trees covering our little plot of borrowed soil, I am amazed that any fruit would come from such a fragile balance of things in our yard (or anywhere!).


This week, we start our communal prayer in the middle of a very honest, very fragile place. O God, the protector of all those who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy. By naming God as our protector, we affirm our need to be protected. We submit that nothing is strong or holy without this protective God. Nothing– not our intellect, our power, our riches, our ambition, our connections, our accomplishment, our productivity, literally nothing is strong or holy without God. What a powerful proclamation of God’s God-ness and our not God-ness (those are made up words, but you get it). We are wholly dependent on Him for strength each day and to be set apart for Him as holy. But the good news is: it’s not a BAD kind of dependent. It’s the only dependent relationship in this life where the one side is fully able and fully meant to hold the other side up. Praise be!

It was God who made the tiny tomato on my deck, giving it all the delicate balances it needs and lending His strength and beauty so that it can ripen into fruit. Did you know birds have different songs for the morning, for mating, and for just singing? Did you know trees talk underground with their roots like neighbors? Did you know some flowers unfurl at night and close back up in the morning?

And how much more does our Maker love us than the birds and the trees and the flowers?

Not to get too Bob the Tomato on you, but I’m that tomato growing so unlikely under the shade of a tender leaf– vulnerable to bug and storm and toddler fingers. Yet, my Heavenly Father, in his ever increasing mercy, rules and guides me through all the temporal things with constant reminders of His eternal kingdom (both future and kingdom come in Jesus). Yes, the storms and the probing toddler fingers and the pests are very real. And, actually, my growth sometimes does feel impossible. Fruit bearing seems doomed before it starts. And, some of those sometimes I am tempted to "waste today being scared of tomorrow" (stealing some sweet Jess Ray lyrics). Yet, somehow God has mercy enough to tend us through all of the earthly obstacles, guiding and ruling our tender hearts so that we might one day rightly guide and rule with Him.