Caring For God's Creation Series

The Scriptures begin with the words “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Everything begins with God and everything God creates is perfect. God created a perfect world and placed man in it as a caretaker with the responsibility of keeping it perfect. He was given authority and dominion over all that God had created to enable him take care of it and preserve it. The Garden of Eden must have been the most beautiful place. Today, we do not even have the capacity to imagine how beautiful it was apart for knowing it was perfect. The rivers were pure, teeming with fish and other aquatic life, animals roamed around peacefully, trees and plants were fruitful producing everything that was needed for nourishment and preservation. The air was pure and all living creatures enjoyed perfect health. Today, our rivers are polluted and fish and aquatic life is dying. The land and air are polluted and the quality of life keeps deteriorating and leading to premature death. Instead of preserving what God has entrusted into our care we are rather destroying it. Some people have become so selfish and greedy that they deny God’s word or even think that they know more than God. They do not respect God or love their fellow human beings and are not concerned about caring for God’s Creation.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:1-3) Jesus Christ is Creator and everything was made by Him and for a purpose. Water, good soil and sunlight are necessary to cultivate and multiply the seeds God had placed in every living plant. God’s plan was perfect and perfection is still the hallmark of the Creator. Unfortunately, man is on a mission to ruin God’s perfect plan.

The reason is that some people dare to think that they are wiser than God. They either do not believe in God or they change or misinterpret His Word to justify their behaviour and actions. According to the theologian, A. W. Tozer, changing the message of God is to change the God of the message, and this is idolatry. Greed has blinded us to the obvious. The carbon dioxide we exhale is used by plants and trees to produce the food we need and the oxygen we breathe. We have all heard it said that when the last tree dies, the last man dies. We are already seeing the effects of the pollution of our water bodies, soil and air. The extent of the cost to our health cannot be underestimated. Lung disease, kidney and liver disease, birth defects and other forms of organ failure are being detected among us, the most vulnerable being children and the poor. We consider murder a very serious crime and see nothing wrong with killing thousands of people through the poisoning of our water bodies, soil and the air we breathe.

Our behaviour relating to how we treat our own people and are not concerned about their welfare has led other nations and people to see nothing wrong with treating us the same way. We have become the dumping ground of other people’s waste. Agbogbloshie, in the heart of Accra, has become a scrapyard for the disposal of e-waste, electronic and electrical waste. The area is contaminated with heavy metals and those living in the area and even outside the area are prone to severe lung diseases. Incredibly, the rich nations ship their electronic waste to us and we actually pay them for it only to be saddled with sickness and disease we cannot deal with. The same thing is happening in the used-clothing business. The used-clothing dealers claim that over 50% of the contents of the bales they pay for have to be discarded and the way of disposing them leads to pollution of the air, soil and water. We have allowed the rich nations to dump their waste on us but unfortunately, we ourselves our polluting our environment and have come to accept it as a way of life.

God loves us and made provision to bless us and take care of all our needs even before He created man. Ideally, we should be living in a perfect environment if we had relied on God and taken good care of what was entrusted into our care. Instead of our reliance on God, we chose to rely on ourselves and cannot understand why the world is in such a mess. It is not too late to turn to God. He loves us and cares about everything that happens to us. He wants the best for us who are created in His image and likeness. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16) When we love the Lord Jesus Christ and put our trust in Him, we will also love our neighbour and treat them with respect. God’s provision can take care of all our needs.