The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. Psalm 24 v 1
Karen says: There are so many verses that talk about how much God loves His creation and why we should care too. When I was asked to bring a reflection from scripture that had inspired me in this area, I didn’t want to just share a great verse but wanted to think through what verse prompted me to care for God’s earth so passionately. I realised that my first encounter with God and creation care came in 1992 when I was just 12 years old. Tearfund ran a campaign called “Whose Earth?”. The Whose Earth? campaign was the first time Tearfund spoke out about climate change, along with Youth for Christ and Spring Harvest.
I have the baseball cap, the t-shirt, and the newspaper cutting of the event’s finale! The front of the t-shirt says “Whose Earth?” The back says “God’s Earth. The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it”.
I realised that this verse is the foundation of my love for nature, gardening, recycling, allotmenting, planting trees with the local school, using reusable mugs at church, and my involvement with Fairtrade. It has underpinned everything I’ve done as a Christian, this understanding that God so loved His world, not just the people in it, but the whole world, it’s His world. So I wanted to share the first 6 verses of Psalm 24, I really like the translation in the Living Bible.
Psalm 24, Living Bible
24 The earth belongs to God! Everything in all the world is his! 2 He is the one who pushed the oceans back to let dry land appear.[a]
3 Who may climb the mountain of the Lord and enter where he lives? Who may stand before the Lord? 4 Only those with pure hands and hearts, who do not practice dishonesty and lying.
5 They will receive God’s own goodness[b] as their blessing from him, planted in their lives by God himself, their Saviour. 6 These are the ones who are allowed to stand before the Lord and worship the God of Jacob.
We are called to bring the message of salvation to the whole world, including creation. Jesus came to bring shalom, a deep real peace, that encompasses every aspect of our being, including our surroundings. Jesus himself said, if we pass a brother in need and save Bless you brother, but do not address his need, we have not blessed him at all. How can we continue to selfishly live, whilst our brothers (& sisters) are dying from our actions...do we simply say, it's ok we'll pray for you? No, we listen to God and we act where we can.
My passion for God’s earth has led me to get very involved in the life of the school my sons attend. As an active member of the PTFA, I suggested that we could start to recycle pens from school as a fundraiser. Through TerraCycle, we now recycle a huge range of plastic waste which in turn pays for eco-projects at school. Through my influence at the school, they have just been awarded status as an Eco-School (Home - Eco Schools (eco-schools.org.uk)) and this year, I helped them to plant 250 trees, provided for free by The Woodland Trust (Free Trees for Schools and Communities - Woodland Trust). Each year we have a potato growing competition, (Home | Grow Your Own Potatoes) when I spend a couple of days in school helping each class plant potatoes. We talk about how potatoes grow, what plants need and the importance of minibeasts. Last year we managed to get a council grant to buy wormeries for the school kitchen waste when I read an article from WRAP (Food waste in schools | WRAP) and learnt of the huge amount of food waste from schools. At least now, the waste can be broken down with our worms and reused in our school garden.
I managed to convince the headteacher and PTFA to let me fundraise to bring an old allotment area back into use, through this project we now have a fabulous garden space, allowing the children to enjoy being outdoors, have lessons in an outdoor shelter and get involved in providing homes for the wildlife, growing fruit, veg and flowers, learning about composting and bugs. I was asked to run an afternoon gardening lesson with the Year 6, during their school day, which has given me a great opportunity to speak to the children about nature and looking after the environment. The school has been so supportive and allowed me great freedom in running these projects and I am so thankful to them, however, although I know that ultimately it is something that God has led me through and blessed me (and the school!) with, and know that without Him and a desire to serve Him, these projects would not have been so fruitful, so to Him be the Glory.
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