As most of Britain endures the hottest day of the fifth heatwave of the summer, alarm bells about of our mismanagement of God’s creation are ringing louder. In his book A Short History of Nearly Everything, written more than twenty years ago, Bill Bryson made the following rather sad observation, ‘if you were designing an organism to look after life… you wouldn’t choose human beings for the job’.
By contrast in the Biblical account of creation God says: “Let us make humankind in our image, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” God’s intention was that we should be good stewards of what he had made. Something has gone very badly wrong. But what?
Our ability to reflect God’s image is tied to being in right relationship with him. Once that relationship was rejected, the image started to fade and rather than act as stewards we assumed we were owners who could do what we liked.
The good news is that when we do care about the natural world it is a sign that we are reflecting something of God’s image, which in turn reminds us that we were created for relationship with him.