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The Privilege of Stewardship
While on vacation, my husband and I walked along the beach. We noticed a large square patch of sand blocked off by a makeshift fence. A young man explained that he worked around the clock with a team of volunteers committed to guarding the eggs in each sea turtle’s nest. Once the hatchlings emerged from their nest, the presence of both animals and humans threaten and decrease their chance of survival. “Even with all our efforts,” he said, “scientists estimate that only one out of every five thousand hatchlings reach adulthood.” These bleak numbers didn’t discourage this young man, however.…
Gratitude on Earth Day
Today’s Our Daily Bread Devotional
The Wonder of Creation
While Tim was hiking on Root Glacier in Alaska, he came across something he’d not seen before. Though Tim studies glaciers professionally, the vast number of small balls of moss were completely unfamiliar to him. After tracking the bright green balls for a number of years, Tim and his colleagues discovered that unlike moss on trees the “glacier mice” are unattached and—even more surprisingly—move in unison, like a herd or flock. At first Tim and his colleagues suspected they were blown by the wind or rolling downhill, but their research ruled out those guesses.
They haven’t yet discovered exactly how the…
Remembering My Father
When I remember my dad, I picture him best outdoors hammering or gardening or downstairs working in his cluttered workroom, stuffed with fascinating tools and gadgets. His hands were always busy at a task or project—sometimes building (a garage or a deck or a birdhouse), sometimes locksmithing, and sometimes designing jewelry and stained-glass art.
Remembering my dad prompts me to think of my heavenly Father and Creator, who has always been busy at work. In the beginning, “[God] laid the earth’s foundations . . . [and] marked off its dimensions . . . while the morning stars sang together and all…
Creation Care
The “big browns” are spawning in the Owyhee River—brown trout beginning their fall nesting ritual. You can see them excavating their nests in the gravelly shallows.
Wise fishermen know that fish are spawning and try not to disturb them. They avoid walking on gravel bars where they might trample the eggs, or wading upstream from the nests where they might dislodge debris that can smother them. And they don’t fish for these trout, though it’s tempting to do so as they rest near their nests.
These precautions are part of an ethic that governs responsible fishing. But there is a deeper and…
Her Father’s Zoo
June Williams was only 4 when her father bought 7 acres of land to build a zoo without bars or cages. Growing up she remembers how creative her father was in trying to help wild animals feel free in confinement. Today Chester Zoo is one of England’s most popular wildlife attractions. Home to 11,000 animals on 110 acres of land, the zoo reflects her father’s concern for animal welfare, education, and conservation.
Solomon had a similar interest in all creatures great and small. In addition to studying the wildlife of the Middle East, he imported exotic animals like apes and monkeys…
Our Father’s World
When Amanda Benavides was a sophomore at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California, she began to rethink her views on Christian stewardship of the earth. Amanda had grown up thinking that being conscious of the environment had nothing to do with her relationship with Jesus. All this changed when she was challenged to consider the Christian’s role in caring for the planet—especially how that relates to reaching the most needy in the world.
Crowned With Glory
The Voyager 1 spacecraft, which was launched in 1977, is on the outer edge of our solar system more than 10 billion miles away. In February 1990, when Voyager 1 was almost 4 billion miles from us, scientists turned its camera toward Earth and took some pictures that revealed our planet as an almost imperceptible blue dot on a vast sea of empty space.
The Goodness Of Work
Some Christians grow up believing work is bad—that it’s a curse brought about by Adam and Eve’s sin. Left uncorrected, this mistaken belief can cause people to feel that what they do in their jobs every day isn’t important to God—or at the very least, isn’t as important as the work of missionaries and pastors. This is not true, as Genesis 1:26-31 teaches us.
Garbage Island
The other day I ran across a troubling report about people who think it is acceptable to use the ocean as a giant garbage dump. Here is an excerpt: “If you should see this amazing floating pile of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, it’s called ‘The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.’
