Time To Listen To The Expert
I had a brilliant idea the other night. If I could just come up with a way to extract carbon from its gaseous form in the atmosphere, convert it into a solid material, or perhaps a liquid, and store the resulting product deep underground, it would no longer cause any problems for the environment and the world’s climate change problems would be over. But then it struck me, hasn’t God already done that? After all, what are coal and oil but safely stored carbon.
At the same time, we discount God as being a remote, invisible, and ineffectual being who doesn’t understand the realities of life and who certainly doesn’t get his hands dirty in the problems of the world. We couldn’t be more wrong. He may not call attention to himself, but God knows exactly what is needed to sustain life on this planet and has worked over tens of millions of years to create the right environment for us. We can explain it away as the outworking of natural processes, but natural processes are some of God’s most basic tools.
Our problem, and this is true of many other parts of life as well, is that we arrogantly think we know better than God and can make our own modifications to the system with no consequences. How often do tradesmen get called in to make expensive repairs to the homes of those who thought they could do it themselves and save a bit of money? We’re doing the same thing on a global scale.
There are no quick and easy fixes, but a step in the right direction might be to get over ourselves, swallow our pride, listen to the experts, and then make some hard decisions. I believe that the greatest expert is God. He has the first-hand experience. He knows what he’s talking about. The bible says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
Neil Percival
At the same time, we discount God as being a remote, invisible, and ineffectual being who doesn’t understand the realities of life and who certainly doesn’t get his hands dirty in the problems of the world. We couldn’t be more wrong. He may not call attention to himself, but God knows exactly what is needed to sustain life on this planet and has worked over tens of millions of years to create the right environment for us. We can explain it away as the outworking of natural processes, but natural processes are some of God’s most basic tools.
Our problem, and this is true of many other parts of life as well, is that we arrogantly think we know better than God and can make our own modifications to the system with no consequences. How often do tradesmen get called in to make expensive repairs to the homes of those who thought they could do it themselves and save a bit of money? We’re doing the same thing on a global scale.
There are no quick and easy fixes, but a step in the right direction might be to get over ourselves, swallow our pride, listen to the experts, and then make some hard decisions. I believe that the greatest expert is God. He has the first-hand experience. He knows what he’s talking about. The bible says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
Neil Percival