The earth is ours, a gift from God. Are we good caretakers? The responsibility is ours to accept. God’s footprint is my carbon footprint.

~ Lisa Blair

Your Footprint Leads To You

Many years ago I read a story about a teenager that burglarized a store very early in the morning and while he was rummaging through this small town store a snow storm began to drop thick snow on the ground. When the teenager left the store he walked home. The police followed his footprints, in the snow, directly to his home.

We are in the midst of a snow storm. Our disregard for earths environment has resulted in catastrophic changes to the earth. Some debate that climate change is a natural event and there is truth to that statement, however, industry created a byproduct, pollution. Pollution is equivalent to the snow storm, and the footprint is the decay it causes, leading directly back to us.

As Christians, we must examine these climatic chances through two lenses, the natural and the spiritual. Our natural lens focuses on the need to produce low cost goods, at low overhead production. Our spiritual lens focuses on the responsibility God gave us eons ago in the Garden of Eden.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” ~ Genesis 2:15 NIV

Many hikers feel that leaving footprints behind them causes damage to the trails. In an effort to leave the earth as they found it, for others to benefit from its pristine view, they sweep directly behind them to eliminate their footprint. We can take a lesson from the hikers. It is time to correct how we impact the earth individually by recycling what we can, eliminating the use of plastics, and sweeping behind us wherever we can.

We Are Caretakers

This morning during prayer, climate and the disregard for God’s earth entered my thoughts in prayer. My conversation with God resulted in an understanding of our responsibility for God’s footprint, leading back to Adam and Eve. God created the earth for us, with the expectation that we would care for the planet.

To put it bluntly, we fell short and mankind was expelled from Eden. [This is not the full reason, but pertinent to this post.] The short story is – we failed. But God is a God of second chances.

The battle between good and evil has prevailed throughout time, carnality vs spirituality. One seeking to get the most for the least, the other attempting to preserve the garden.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ~ John 3:17 ESV

As children of God, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. It is through this relationship that we know and feel the responsibility to protect the earth. It is time to wake up and receive His daily mercies leading us to protect the earth God gave us.

My new mantra —

“God’s Footprint is my carbon footprint.”

If each of us go into prayer to seek guidance, we can change our footprint. God uses us to instruct and direct needed changes. There is an old saying, ‘it is never over until God says it is over.’ Our actions will either exacerbate current conditions, or begin to reverse them. Plastic islands are a byproduct we can eliminate, which will help revive the oceans. Air pollution, caused by particulates from industry and individual use can be exchanged for less destructive products, allowing us to better protect our ozone layer, or throwing things away with reckless abandon, litter can be mitigated, or better yet eradicated. We can become earths caretakers as God planned.