A proposal to save the environment

There is a lot of talk about going green and loving the environment. But the Bible says the Lord himself will "make the land a desolation" (Isaiah 13:9). He will do it not because our carbon footprint is too big but because our world is wicked and needs destroying (see Noah's story). While it is true that God Himself is the one who told us to take good care of the trees and seas He made (Genesis 1:28-30), He is prepared to wreck his own garden because of our filthiness.

We should not imagine that He would do this gleefully. It makes the Lord grieve. We get a peek into His emotions in a little exchange between Him and Jeremiah's scribe Baruch. Baruch thinks he has troubles, just because his personal ambitions are about to amount to nothing when Israel gets overrun by enemies to the north. The Lord tells him to try this on for size:

"Behold, what I have built, I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up - that is, the whole land. And do you seek great things for yourself?" (Jeremiah 45)

I have watched my dad pull up a string of diseased cucumber vines that amounted to nothing, so I have a glimpse of how God must have felt - like a gnat has a glimpse of the elephant it lands on. We parents have an expression: "This hurts me more than it hurts you," and often say it tongue-in-cheek. But there is nothing tongue-in-cheek about it when it comes to God. God has a heart that grieves when He has to execute judgment:

"How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender . . ." (Hosea 11:8).

So when we live any way we please and engage in lively debates about dirty fuels, we are like a child at the beach who digs a hole on shore and runs back and forth with her bucketful of water, thinking to fill the hole with the ocean. Or to use God's own metaphor of spiritual insanity, we are like a person putting money in a bag with holes (Haggai 1:6).

But God has sometimes in history delayed His judgment when people have repented. Consider the Ninevites in Jonah's time, or Israel's brief reprieve after the revival under King Josiah.

So my modest suggestion for global warming is repentance and revival. I know that many churches are doing that already. I get mail from people like Joyce Miller at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City who inform me about round-the-clock prayer meetings. J. Edwin Orr wrote that all revivals in this country have been preceded by concerts of prayer. Should I call the White House?

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.