The following is one of numerous short blogs I wrote for my kids as they graduated from high school. Each received 12 blogs, tailored to each one, in a book.
Sustainability
“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”
– Native American Proverb
Scripture
Jesus said, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ Luke 14:28
Lesson
If it will cost about $3000 for a vacation to California, and I only gave you $1500, would you leave on the vacation? Would you go knowing you would run out of money? Of course not. Jesus spoke about this in Luke’s gospel. It would make no sense to start something you can not finish. We should not live in a way that exhausts the resources we have. The longer time horizon of the earth’s decline tricks us to think we are not running out of time.
What does it mean to be sustainable? Sustainable means living in a manner that can be continued indefinitely by not depleting the resources in the system. Financial sustainability means not spending more money than you make. Time sustainability is not scheduling more than you can possibly complete. Tree sustainability is not cutting down the trees so fast they can’t recover. Animal sustainability means not harvesting a species so fast they go extinct. It is not killing the golden goose. Now the truth is that there is no such thing as 100% sustainable. If we extract anything from the Earth, eventually we will run out because there are no infinite resources. However, the slower we exploit the world's resources, the better our quality of life will be.
The United States budget is fundamentally unsustainable. Thinking that we can continually spend more money than we “earn” is folly. There will be a crash coming; it is just a matter of time. Don’t live in fear, but also be wise.
It is very selfish to live our lives in a way that excessively consumes the resources that our children and grandchildren will need. In the west we want our standard of living so badly that we can’t admit to ourselves that it is completely unsustainable. We selfishly realize we are going to be fine and don’t concern ourselves with future generations. We must, however, find a new unselfishness that allows us to lower our standard of living for the good of our children.
Some Christians will say that creation care is not important because Jesus is coming soon to burn it all up. But we do not know when Jesus will return. Rather Christians should care deeply about the creation their God crafted for them and others.
Creation is beautifully sustainable. What God made works in amazing rhythms. The sun grows grass. Herbivores eat the grass. The herbivores crap and fertilize the grass. Trees grow leaves. The leaves fall off and compost to fertilize new growth. The trees die and rot to fertilize new growth. Water evaporates from the sea to form clouds which create rain, which flows down creeks and rivers to the sea. Animals eat each other all the way up the food chain providing sustenance all the way. The waste decomposes and becomes new plants and animals. There is only one thing in creation that breaks the cycles… humans. We pull resources from the earth and use them faster than they can be replenished or bury them in landfills so they are lost forever.
In all aspects of our lives and communities we should develop our responsibility by asking the one question, Is this sustainable? This question helps us to have a viewpoint that extends beyond our time and geography.
Works Cited/Recommended Resources
Salatin, Joel. The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs: Respecting and Caring for All God's Creation First edition., Faith Words, 2016.
https://creationcare.org/
Questions
What do you see in your world that is not sustainable in the long run?
Have you heard Christians offering negative comments about caring for the environment? What do you think about this?
How could you be disciplined enough to spend money sustainably?
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