Today I have another guest post from my bloggy friend at Momma Does It All. She offers some great perspective on being green and what it has to do with being a Christian. Enjoy!
Admittedly, I have been late to the party as far as green living is concerned. I drive an SUV. I don’t recycle much. I buy bottled water. My groceries are packed in plastic bags and I throw a fair number of them away. I don’t pay much attention to the amount of waste created by me or my family. For some reason, the whole green living thing hit me the wrong way and I’ve just not embraced it. That started to change for me a few Sundays ago.
A few Sundays ago, I was sitting in our church listening to our pastor’s sermon ready and waiting for the wisdom she would share that week. Her sermons in April focused on the earth and God’s creation. Early in the month she had talked about the beauty of God’s creation and encouraged us all to pause during the week to admire the beauty that we find all around us. It was a great sermon and she even asked us all to email her pictures of the beauty we saw during the week. Those pictures were run in a slide show before, during and after the service the following week and there were some amazing photos shared. The sermons both weeks were great and I enjoyed them, but it was the next sermon that got my attention. It was her sermons the following two weeks that truly got my attention. It created that little bit of discomfort in myself that makes me think about my own thoughts and actions.
If you refer to Genesis 1:1-26, you will note that Man was created last. We were created after the vegetation, the rivers and the animals. In Genesis 1:29-30, God gives these instructions to Man
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground - everything that has the breath of life in it - I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
As a person who is new to the Bible, I have spent more time in the New Testament than in the Old Testament. The verses above showed me that God had a purpose in mind for all that he created. God gave us the Earth to provide for us and for all that he created. In Genesis 2:15, it’s presented a slightly different way:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
As a Christian, I often focus on living my life in such a way as to be closer to God. I attend church services every Sunday, go to Bible Study and I am active in our church. Our family tithes and we try to live our lives in line with God’s teachings. Well, I thought we did until I heard our pastor’s sermons in April. After that, I began to question my attitude about green living. Here I am, trying to be a good Christian and all the while, I am paying very little attention to the planet that God created for us. I’ve taken it for granted and honestly, forgotten that it is God’s creation for us. Now that I have been reminded, I have to change my thoughts and my actions. By not recycling where I can, not paying attention to the waste our family creates and not looking for ways to live a more green lifestyle, I am not respecting the beautiful gift that God gave to us. Who knew that being green was being Christian?
Cyndy is an East Coaster turned Texan who lives outside of Dallas with her family. You can find her at Mama Does It All where she blogs about her faith, living frugally, her faith, and whatever other random thoughts hit her radar.
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