Daily Devotionals

It’s been called the world’s largest natural flower garden. The Dubai Miracle Garden not only provides a stunning display of over 60 million flowers, it’s a miracle in itself because it sits in the hot, arid desert. The garden opened in 2013 and attracts up to 1.5 million visitors each year.

Over 86,000 square yards of displays greet visitors who are tired of malls, concrete, and steel. Floral structures—including a life-size replica of the Emirates Airbus A380—are covered in beautiful flowers seven months of the year. The 104-degree temperatures make it too challenging to grow flowers in the summer.

When the Lord presented the Garden of Eden to our first parents within the perfect environment of our world, untarnished by sin, it must have been a jaw-dropping sight. God created our planet to communicate His love for humanity. “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed” (Genesis 2:8).

The Lord’s creatorship shows that He is Father of all people. “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?” (Malachi 2:10). It makes all humans brothers and sisters and eliminates any room for racism, bigotry, and other forms of discrimination.

Creation also establishes our responsibility to care for the earth. “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth’ ” (Genesis 1:28). Even the dignity of manual labor is seen from the beginning, for the Lord asked Adam to “tend and keep” the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15).

Though our world is filled with evil and sin has marred the creation, it was not that way in the beginning. The Bible says, “His work is perfect” (Deuteronomy 32:4). Everything God made was pronounced “good” (Genesis 1:10, 12, 17, 21, 25). When you visit a flower garden, look closely and you will see glimpses of our first home.

Apply It:

Visit a flower garden or purchase a bouquet of flowers for someone you love. As you enjoy them, think of the very first garden-home given to us by God.

Dig Deeper:

Job 12:7–10; Psalm 24:1; Colossians 1:16, 17

Key Bible Texts

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31 KJV)