Tamping is the process of firming down the seed into the soil with the back of a rake to ensure that the seed comes into close contact with the soil and will be without any air pockets.

     Perhaps you are a new Christian and you are wondering why so many unpleasant things have been happening to you.  Don't wonder anymore.  It is your faithful Master Gardener ensuring that His seed will grow well.  His compassion is new every morning (Lam. 3:22-23).

     His tamping is to press you closer and closer to Him, and surely that is what we pray for and what we desire.  We have a problem with the painful things in our lives only because we don't understand or see, how good , how wise, how needful, and how loving this all is for us at the time.

     The Lord knows all His plants perfectly.  He has made them.  He not only made them once, but re-made them again, and had to pay a great price to do it (II Cor. 5:15).

     Some require more tamping than others.  They have a nature that keeps pulling away from the soil, wanting to live independently from it.  But that would be death to the plant, so He can't allow that to happen no matter how much the blows of the rake may hurt.  

     Oh, may we come to learn, and believe, that all this pain is for our sakes in order to make us into a beautiful fruit-bearing tree to God's glory (II Cor. 4:15).  

     All things are of God (II Cor. 5:18). 

     Let us thank Him and praise Him for His continued goodness towards us!!!