Understanding our place in the world

Today is Earth Day.

My thoughts turn to the awesome world God has created for us to live on. The orderliness of creation alone is testimony of a Creator instead of some big explosion theory. According to the Word of God on the sixth day God created livestock, creatures that move on the ground, wild animals and man.

Man was created with all the other mammals. Man was created in God's image and God gave man dominion (not necessarily domination) over the fish, birds, livestock and all the creatures that move along the ground. Man was given the responsibility of naming all the animals (Genesis 2:19).

What a big responsibility when you consider the myriad of species, subspecies and as Steven Bouma-Prediger author of For the Beauty of the Earth wrote, "The earth swims in diversity ... the diversity of different kinds of natural systems in our ecosystem. For example there are 4,000 to 5,000 species of bacteria in a single gram of beech forest soil, not to mention all the beetles, centipedes, earthworms and the like" (Bouma-Prediger, For the Beauty of the Earth, page 20).

God created a very beautiful, complex, ordered, and diverse world for us to live as a part of. If you think about it, all the plants, animals and humans live in the same house. A house called Earth. What God created was plentiful, beautiful, bountiful and provided for not only man's needs but boasts a complex interconnectedness of all creatures on the earth. When God created it he looked at it and called it good. What man and woman did in the garden was not good. Not only humans were punished for their disobedience, but all of nature was affected (Genesis 3: 14-24). All of the earth groans under the effects of that sin in the garden.

James Montgomery Boice, a Christian pastor and commentator, wrote, "God intended that the environment of man be a thing of great beauty, and in many areas the beauty of man's God-given environment is still evident. On the other hand, we can hardly read this and then turn without weeping to the man distorted and ugly environments that men have made for themselves. God made a garden, but we litter that garden. In our cities we often eliminate the garden entirely. In place of beauty we have the junk, garbage, and sometimes terribly mangled lives of men and women. How terrible sin is! How abnormal is the environment of man today as we find it!" (Boice, Genesis, Vol. 1, Page 125)

On this Earth Day take time to thank the Lord for the water, soil, plants, air and food that He has provided for us. We are a part of that great creation and we have a responsibility to care for it. Not only did man name everything, but God called for man and woman to care for it (Genesis 2:15).

Be respectful of those living around you, treat the earth as a gift because it was created good and out of God's Love.

I want to close with words from a hymn written by Colin Gibson, "Touch the earth lightly, use the earth gently, nourish the life of the world in our care: gift of great wonder, ours to surrender, trust for the children tomorrow will bear." Pray hard and keep the faith, Pastor Sue Metcalf

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Metcalf is pastor of Forest Hills Church, an American Baptist congregation. Email her at [email protected].

Religion on 04/22/2015