For the love of God, let’s do something about climate change!
Hold on, surely God’s immune, right?
But consider these: ‘Let everything that has breath praise the Lord’ (Psm 150:6), ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.’ (Psm 19:1-4) ‘Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it. Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy. Let all creation rejoice before the Lord, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth.’ (Psm 96:11-13) ‘Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds’ (Psm 148:7-10).
The Psalms are art, and like the words of any other poem or song the language is figurative not literal – but their message does emphasise that God takes worship from the created world as a whole, not just from people singing!
I’m passionate about our God, I desperately want Him to be worshipped more – She deserves more worship than this world could ever give Him. But how can a damaged world, with species going extinct and people struggling to survive, praise God fully? Every person who has to spend so much energy simply trying to survive and make ends meet that they have no time to worship is a loss to God’s praise. Everyone who dies is one fewer worshippers. Every creature that dies is a loss to God’s worship. Even a landscape that God made good but that we are changing for the worse diminishes God’s worship. And directly, God loves this world and wants it protected (Gen 2:15, Psm 24:1, Col 1:20), so the damage we do to it breaks God’s heart.
Can we make it part of our worship to help all creation to worship God to its fullest? To make it all that it can be, and help it fulfil its potential?
What do you love and want to protect from climate change? Tell the government by taking part in our photo petition! (no camera skill required ;) !)