It’s so hard when you read something and that something starts convicting you. It’s especially hard when it not only goes against how you’ve done it all your life, but also how you were taught in your “religious” upbringing to think about it.
For instance, I was always taught that God created the earth for our use. While there is truth in that, it also implied, in no uncertain terms, that it was for our abuse. It gave the okay to, at the very least, mock environmentalists and at the most say that they were being unscriptural and unGodly.
In defense of my upbringing, I think a lot of those views came with the fact that they started back in a time when things were simpler and cleaner, and we just got stuck in them. I think that anyone now can’t argue (intelligently anyway) that we can just keep on like we have been. There are too many signs pointing to the fact that we’ve abused our rights.
I have been severely convicted to change my viewpoint of that. One of the benefits has been the amazing reduction in our trash output. We’ve been recycling for years, but this year I got really serious (otherwise known as obsessed) about it. I have always recycled the easy stuff… glass, cans, etc. Amazingly, I wasn’t recycling that much paper. A few months into the school year I realized that my kids bring home a ridiculous amount of paper. Instead of putting it into the trash like usual, I started placing it in the recycling bin. Besides the fact that it made it a lot easier to retrieve when I had “accidentally” put something in that I shouldn’t have (which I did often to the dismay of many teachers), it also reduced our trash output by more than half. MORE THAN HALF. For two kids in school, our trash was cut in half. I won’t get into what that probably means about their education… but that is just a crazy amount of paper being wasted.
So… back to reading convicting stuff. I’m in the middle of reading Serve God, Save the Planet:A Christian Call to Action.
This book was written by a Christian doctor who started looking at what we’ve done to this earth and the results he now sees around him- specifically in his work.
I can’t get through a chapter without wanting to turn my life upside down. I know that doesn’t make it sound like such an appealing book to read, but it really is fascinating.
As I can process better I might blog more about this, but right now- it’s kicking my butt!!
