We find ourselves in the midst of one of the hottest summers in recent history, and I for one cannot help but consider the notion that some of the weather extremes and climate changes are being impacted by what human beings have done to the earth and its atmosphere. Greenhouse gases (that are spewed into the air by engines), oil spills (like the one in the Gulf of Mexico) and other hazardous waste are interrupting the natural course of things and causing nature to react. It breaks my heart when I see images of oil soaked sea creatures and wildlife, hear stories of the endangerment of polar bears because of melting glaciers, and learn of the depletion, extinction and disease of species caused by things like deforestation. We must become better stewards of God’s earth!

Stewardship has been the topic for our Vacation Bible School for 2010, themed “Lets Go Green for Jesus.” How we care for the environment and participate as stewards of God’s creation is an indicator of our level of respect for the grandeur and wisdom of The Creator. In Genesis, at the end of each day of Creation, God saw that what God had created was good. God then placed God’s crowning creation, human kind (made in God’s image), in the midst of it to manage it for God. I believe that God is pleased when we take more thought toward preserving the resources that God has provided, and grieved when we in our self-interest thoughtlessly allow it to be destroyed. Most of us often allow the pressures of every day life make us so intent on getting things done that we don’t make it a priority to practice behaviors that are ecofriendly.

Similarly, in our spiritual lives, there is an environment that we have to steward. What we “emit” spiritually does not just affect us, but also the spiritual climate in which we participate. We are the Body of Christ, the House of God, and what we allow to be released into the atmosphere can either sustain it or poison it. Things like negativity, gossip, unnecessary conflict, impatience and intolerance create an unhealthy environment that inhibits growth and causes spiritual disease, while things like encouragement, honesty, dialogue and openness are spiritually eco-friendly. Clean energy comes from a solid prayer life and the Holy Spirit’s application and “combustion” of God’s Word in our personal lives. Let’s each take personally the responsibility to output healthiness and not pollution into our spiritual climate, so that new life can be fostered and brokenness can be healed.

As we watch the BP crisis, the cleanup seems almost like an impossible task, and some damage may be irrevocable. However, this does not have to be the case in our spiritual lives, even if we have had some spillage or have done some damage. Many of us have aspects of our lives that are saturated by drama and negative influences, to the extent that they have become unmanageable and unable to support or sustain health and wellness. Be encouraged! God is an expert recycler, and through Christ is able to skim and redeem every drop that flows from our mistakes before it becomes a problem, so that it can then work for our good! Many of us know this from experience, because we ourselves have been recycled from the enemy’s “refuse heap” of spiritual uselessness, to a condition of restoration, and even those things which
seemed like “environmental disasters” are now being utilized productively to give life to others. We may rejoice in the notion that God is in charge of our cleanup. God wants to plant us and position us, individually and collectively, to promote sustainability in God’s creation.