Prayerful Environmental Stewardship

Lord, You spoke the first garden into existence — every cedar of Lebanon, every sparrow that nests in its branches, every river that carves its path through stone. You called it good before a single human voice existed to agree with You. And then You handed Adam a mandate not to exploit, but to tend. To keep. To steward what Your hands had made.

When Jesus stood before the crowd in Luke 6 and declared, "Blessed are you who are poor," He was naming a truth the powerful had forgotten: that the earth does not belong to those who consume the most of it. The hungry will be filled — not because scarcity is God's design, but because abundance is. Every polluted watershed, every strip-mined hillside, every child breathing factory smoke in a neighborhood no politician visits — these are not just policy failures. They are violations of the Creator's intent.

Father, forgive us for treating Your creation like a warehouse instead of a cathedral. Open our eyes to see that the family downstream from the chemical plant bears Your image just as fully as the executive who signs the permit. Give us the courage to plant trees we will never sit under, to fight for clean water in zip codes we will never live in, and to teach our children that dominion was always meant to look like service.

Today, step outside. Put your hands in the soil if you can. And ask the God who sculpted mountains and painted sunsets one honest question: What part of Your good creation are You asking me to protect? The answer may be as close as your own backyard — or as far as a community you have never visited but were always meant to serve.