A nearby stand of trees once suffered from brutal timbering. When I draw near, it feels hostile and uninviting. Another woods nearby was spared from unkind axes and saws. Walking there feels peaceful and welcoming. That’s even without noticing the visual differences— the logged woods is marred empty spots and the darkly decaying stumps and rotting timbers left by man, but the unlogged woods feels fuller, more wild.
I’ve read that that plants give off electrical charges. If a plant is hurt and its abuser draws near, electrical charges from the plant will be recorded as graph-lines that correspond to those drawn from the emotional patterns of people who are hurt are abused. If a plant is fed and watered, when the nurturing person draws near the plant will give off charges that graph to lines like those of positive human emotions. I won’t go so far to say that the trees like me. But I’m doing my best to let them know that I like them and mean no harm.
Today, the rudely logged woods has grown without human disturbance for over a decade. The old stumps are rotting away; several generations of birds, deer and small mammals have nurtured the soil; a swarm of wild bees settled there. Trees are slow to communicate with one another, but it seems to me our little woods is slowly relaxing. Walking along the edges feels less tense, more harmonious than it did ten years ago.
Like healthy people, plants are emergent, learning, and growing. All of creation responds to circumstances and waits for redemption.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Romans 8: 20-22
Originally, the peace of God suffused all creation. Natural forces, plant and animal kingdoms and human beings all fit together in harmony. Man’s dominion over nature was based on the deep kind wisdom that God gives His lovers. Adam’s wise rule over creation came from God Himself. Oswald Chamber’s reflections on man’s relationship to nature illumine what went wrong.He wrote:
“. . .the universe is wild and unmanageable. And yet in the beginning God intended man to control it; the reason he cannot is because he twisted God’s order; instead of recognizing God’s dominion over himself, man became his own god, and by so doing lost control of everything else.
“When Jesus Christ came He was easily Master of the life in the air and earth and sky, and in Him we see the order God originally intended for man. If you want to know what the human race is to be like on the basis of the Redemption, you will find it mirrored in Jesus Christ—a perfect oneness between God and man, no gap; in the meantime there is a gap, and the universe is wild, not tame. Every type of superstition pretends it can rule the universe, the scientific quack proclaims he can control the weather, that he has occult powers and can take the untameable universe and tame it. God says it cannot be done.” from Baffled to Fight Better: Job and the Problem of Suffering by Oswald Chambers © Oswald Chambers Publications Association.
And yet—control and the rule of God are not the same. Jesus stilled the storm. And when he cursed the fig tree, it died. Could our extreme weather disasters be a consequence of increasing apostasy? Not a judgment by the hand of God — but a natural consequence of the disorder caused by man’s rejection of God’s ways? Jesus did teach us to pray,
Thy kingdom come, Thy Will be done, On earth as it is in Heaven.
Matthew 6:10
Knowing that, let us earnestly pray,
Lord, bring Your Kingdom. Establish Your rule of harmony and love—as much as is possible in this unruly earth— in us and through us. Today. Amen
