“The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.” John 21:8-9

Jesus cooked up breakfast on the beach for the boys.
In fact, He had the very thing the disciples had spent all night trying to get.
Except these fish were cleaned, gutted, grilled and ready to enjoy.
Plus bread.

PB and I are attempting to do some landscaping work in the front of our house. Every professional landscaper is booked into 2023, it seems, so we are stumbling and bumbling our way through the project. We have been driving around the neighborhood, looking at other front yards. Sometimes we roll down the window and yell out to the homeowner, “What’s the name of that tree?” We wander around garden centers, wishing someone would just tell us what to buy. We’ve spent weeks trying to figure out what zone we are in and why that matters.

We are not good at this.

Let me re-phrase that.

I am not good at this.

PB is doing all the real work,
but I give him lots of encouragement from the front porch.

On the advise of the guy at the local nursery, we bought an Autumn Blaze Pear Tree and it was delivered this week. Luckily for us, the owner of the landscape place was the deliverer. Actually, he was our Deliverer.

He took one look at our blank slate of a front yard and started throwing out the Latin names of species of plants and flora like a Roman orator. PB pulled out his phone and started recording every word. I grabbed a pen and paper and started taking notes.

He took one look at our blank stares and realized we were in over our heads. So, bless his heart, he told us exactly what to buy and where to plant it and how to take care of it. He designed a landscape plan and marked it out with spray paint. He did for us in half an hour what we had been struggling to make sense of for weeks.

Plus, we made a new friend.

PB and I
(and the fish-less fishermen on Lake Galilee)
would do well to stop striving
and connect with the right person.
Like the Creator of the Universe.
He’s already got what we try so hard to come up with on our own.