Much discussion and debate has taken place over the meaning of mankind’s God-given “dominion” over the earth. Does nature exist to be “used” by man? What is involved in being a “steward” of Creation? And to what extent should humans forgo their wants or needs to sustain the natural environment around us?

In today’s devotional at Wonder of Creation, Dean Ohlman approaches the issue from a slightly different angle, and challenges us to think of mankind not just as nature’s steward, but as its hope:

…reflective of Adam’s task to understand, care for, and name the animals, note that the creation is looking expectantly for something from us: it is eager to so see us “coming into [our] own.” Nature has been suffering under God’s righteous, man-disciplining curse (Genesis 3:13-19) and under the abuse of sinful mankind and it is looking forward to our being sinless, Eden-like stewards once again. Simply said, we are not what we should be, and nature knows it. Every time animals flee from me or try to attack me out of perceived self-defense when I mean them no harm, I hurt. Don’t you? And when wild animals do take the risk to venture close, I thrill at being trusted.

Eden resides down deep in us—and in the animals. O how I long for that day when things will be even better than Eden and trust returns between us and the creatures.

Read the full devotional at wonder of Creation.

Perhaps that’s a new question to add to the never-ending debate over environmentalism, climate change, and Creation stewardship: are we striving to meet the hopes of Creation?

By: Andy. This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 10:37 am and is filed under Devotional, environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.