My summer garden is one of my greatest joys. The hot weather finally came to wake up the veggies and to flourish. In one raised bed the strawberries stand almost a foot high, thanks to the special fertilizer my friend Benny recommended. I’ve never seen them with more blooms and I can’t wait for them to ripen. Red, sweet, naturally ripe berries can’t be surpassed for flavor. But alas, just as they mature and ripen – the enemy sneaks in and takes one little bite out of each berry and ruins them all. I’m talking about “not so cute” little chipmunks, those pesky critters which manage to squeeze through every cover or net protection I’ve devised for the strawberries.

This year I was not going to lose the battle to the invaders so I decided to build a wire mesh cage to cover the raised bed. There were lots of photos and instructions via Google to go by. How hard could it be? After all, my father was a very gifted woodworker and if he never actually taught me his craft, well, I knew some paternal sawdust must have rubbed off on me. I enlisted my faithful, if reluctant garden companion Dan, to help me with the project. We bought wood, varnish and special screws. We bought a lot of hardware cloth. Dan, the lawyer, had all the power tools for cutting, drilling and setting screws for the frame while I, ever the teacher, stood nearby with lots of ready advice. It took both of us to wrestle the nasty edged wire cloth onto the frame without slicing our skin and staple it on. Roll number one covered less than ½ the frame so it was back to the store for more. Roll number two didn’t quite make it either and left one side of the cube exposed. Now C&M Lumber Co. has become my favorite place to shop but I just refused to go back again. These were going to be very expensive strawberries. Nor would I admit that perhaps I should have used some high school geometry to figure out the area of this five sided cube and thus, buy the right amount.

Not to worry, my hubby said. We’ll piece it from the mesh scraps we cut off. And piece it he did with exactly the right amount of mesh to finish the cage. However, there was a problem: the piecing left overlapping spaces large enough for any determined rodent to get through. Dan came up with an elaborate solution of more wood bracing under the mesh and lots more staples, but after three days of this project, he was tired of messing around. We’ll finish tomorrow, he promised. Uh, Uh, I thought so close to victory. I found a box of plastic zip ties, threaded a dozen of them through the overlapping mesh and zipped the spaces shut. It was done. It fits almost perfectly onto the raised bed with no gaps or holes . It isn’t pretty or professional with all those white plastic nubbies sticking out, but I do believe I am now smarter than a chipmunk. Well, we’ll at least test that premise as the strawberries come on.

As in the natural so in the spiritual. There is a lesson here. How often do we come to the Lord with our problems asking Him for help but limiting His power in us. We know He is more than able to supply us with every need. He is the Source and He is the Solution but then we stick our hands into our own messes. We’re like unfinished cubes which God is creating. We need His covering and protection from the elements, from enemies great and small. But too often we ask God for barely enough. We want to see His work in us through our eyes, our materials, our workmanship, not His. Worse, we take over the crisis or problem or sickness and, thus, never even ask what greater measure God has for us to to finish well. We keep having to go back over and over to the Christ’s “Heavenly Hardware Supplies” for just one more thing, barely enough for the quick fix and forget that God offers infinitely more than enough. When we try to piece ourselves together from life’s scraps and leftovers, we’re left with zip tie solutions.

We do not serve a Zip Tie God! We serve a God of infinite resources, limitless power, perfect plan and unquenchable love. Wouldn’t it be simpler to allow God to finish His perfect work perfectly in us?