Earth Keepers - Martin Wiles

Litter. Everywhere. Spoiling my view. Some were not earth keepers.

 

My daily walk takes me through the back lots of several local businesses. Except for one, litter spoils the view of each. The first lot I pass through is a local grocery chain. Although two dumpsters hover against the building, employees often miss it when throwing away spoiled or out-of-date food. Bags of rotten potatoes and oranges, along with rotting heads of cabbage and lettuce, litter the lot, tainting my view and leaving a stench for me to enjoy.

 

Next, I pass by the back of an appliance-rental retailer, where I see pieces of cardboard boxes, Styrofoam, and peanuts blown about by the wind and now nestled in the scrub bushes and trees that line the back of the lot.

 

The next business is a popular bar and grill. Although employees throw store trash in two large dumpsters, some of them, along with customers, leave their meal trash lying in the parking lot. Cups, take-out trays, and paper litter the back and sides of the business, waiting for the wind to scatter it into the next parking lot—the only one whose employees take care not to litter.

 

On the final pass of my walk, I scoot through the parking lot of a popular chicken fast-food joint. Here too, employees and customers leave the same sort of trash lying around as do those from the bar and grill. The wind mixes the litter of both places together and scatters it into a vacant parking lot that lingers next door.

 

“The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it” (Genesis 2:15 NLT).

 

When God created the earth, He did so with beauty and purity. He placed the first couple in a garden and told them to tend it. Although thousands of years have passed, God still expects us to care for His larger gardens—gardens that litter spoils.

 

Many ways abound for us to care for God’s earth: not littering, picking up litter, recycling, planting flowers and trees, planting vegetable gardens, planting roof-top gardens, and adopting a section of a road (or a parking lot) for litter pickup.

 

The Bible says God will make a new heaven and a new earth when time ends, but many He will renew the earth, not recreate it. With that in mind, our earth-keeping will make less work for God in the end and will make it a beautiful place for us to enjoy now. Caring for it also helps us shine our testimony for God and preserves a nice place for our posterity.

 

Earth keeping is our responsibility. Think of some ways you can help preserve your section of God’s earth.

 

Prayer: Father, make us more responsible when it comes to caring for Your earth. 

Tweetable: Are you an earth keeper? 

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