Here is Sammy –
we seem to like naming animals, and what is wrong with that? After all didn’t God name things,
God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.
and then He gave Adam the job to do the same.
Genesis 2:19
Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.
God’s perfect gardeners are all around us.
As I watched Sammy, and I realise he could be a she, he used the high vantage point to spot seeds, then he rushed to gather them. Some he would nibble on and others he would bury in the roof. I read somewhere that these seeds or nuts they bury are used as stores when the weather gets bad and the supplies get low. Unlike many humans at Christmas time when they just stuff themselves silly! But the point is that not all these stores he comes back to. Some will grow into plants and trees. He is a perfect gardener as I can not reach up onto the roof to plant these seeds and he is burying them the perfect distance underground for them to sprout in Spring. It is all with the balance of nature, a very fine balance.
Many people consider squirrels to be pests. On the RHS website it talks about them like they are eating everything in the garden. All our precious flowers? My view is different. Squirrels have equal right to live in this land as we do and to co-exist with us. The squirrels need food and water and so if they find seeds, nuts, and flowers tasty to eat then I shall do my best to help them along. I seem to have enough given to me by God, so why not share it with the birds and animals.
Many animals, birds, insects and God’s creatures are helpful gardeners doing some vital job that we could not possibly do so well as them. It seems to be only when there is an imbalance in nature that we get damage or animals eating and damaging things that they normally don’t.
It is my view that as Christians we should not believe that we are better than God’s creatures, but equal in most respects. We should be humbly aware that we have a special duty placed upon us. We are extremely privileged and blessed and we are chosen by God to be God’s children. The animals however are God’s animals and we have been given a duty to look after them.
“Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
The natural balance
One thing that writing this blog has taught me is that everything in creation has a right to be here. Trees, plants, algae, insects, animals, birds, everything. It is only when the imbalance to this natural world is tampered with that we see the drastic results. Just look at houses built on flood plains, they are now sadly being flooded. We need natural areas for the water to soak into – not more concrete patios!
A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.
Housing taking over all the natural habitat and not leaving pockets with corridors of woods and natural hedges for animals to live within, is a huge reason why animals and God’s creatures are feeling threatened. They lash out and try to survive any way they can – they are not pests – we are! The world left to itself would thrive, on the other hand we have done nothing but destroy and take from this world what we can. Humanity has been called a disease, or the weeds.
11 Honest scales and balances belong to the Lord;
all the weights in the bag are of his making.
God has set the balances of the worlds by setting in place natural laws. All the scientific laws and rules. When we start to stretch these is when there seems to be a sudden change to settle the balance. We are just the stewards, and yet we act mostly like we own and have created everything.
Sin leads ultimately to death.
So if the natural world needs to stay in a balance, and the consequence of the imbalance are nature being extreme and animals coming out of their territory and damaging things, then it also figures that man going against the natural laws laid down by God has a natural consequence, death.
God planted the cure
The good news is that God being the very first gardener – after all he planted the universe and the first garden in Eden – then He also planted a seed that would one day come to reinstate this lost connection with Him. This seed would settle the sin and in balance caused by the first sin, and every sin after it.
He planted his very own Son to be born in the womb of Mary, to grow up and be one of us, to be cast off and denied by us, to be put to death by us, and as a seed has to die in the ground before it bursts into life, so Jesus, our Immanuel for he truly was ‘God with us’, was raised from the dead to proclaim that He had done away with this consequence.
God left a guide and helper
But God didn’t just pack up and leave us to it, like every other religious guru. All have failed on that account. Jesus succeeded by paying the price and then sending the Holy Spirit to guide and pray for us, in each one of us.
So the answer to sin is to accept Jesus, glorify God the Father, and pray with the Holy Spirit as a guide within us. But how about nature? We have been given consciences to try to save this world, these urgings come from God and we should each act on them as best we can for we surely need to restore this world as best we can.
Dear Father, thank you for you creation, for your guidance through life. Help each one of us listen to your Holy Spirit and act upon that voice. Help us all to become better gardeners of the space given to us. Better gardeners of your grace so we can sow seeds that will reap results, through love, through your Son – Jesus Christ our Lord and saviour.
Amen
365 Exhortations 