Thursday, April 19, 2007
It is All About God
Would you rather spend your vacation at Glacier National Park than Disney World? What is the reason for that? The answers for this question will vary because it all depends on personal preferences. However, there are definitely some people who will say that they like “nature” more than a man-made amusement park. However, Joel Belz writes in World magazine that this is a false dichotomy about the world’s beauty.
Belz writes, “And the most breathtaking of the world’s “natural wonders” usually depend on human stewardship to show them off to their best advantage- or maybe even to allow them to be seen in the first place (Belz, 3).” The fact that God’s marvelous works are shining even better because of human stewardship is emphasized throughout this article. Sometimes we say that we get closer to God’s amazing and beautiful works as we get closer to “nature”. We sometimes become oblivious of the fact that people are putting a huge amount of work to maintain and even develop the “nature”. For example, “For centuries, most of these steep mountain slopes have been terraced from top to bottom and planted with grape vineyards, lemon groves, and olive trees. Pocketsize gardens are everywhere (Belz, 3).” In this sense, there is really no difference between Disney World and Glacier National Park.
It is easy to get trapped in a false dichotomy about the world’s beauty. However, we always have keep in mind that “The builder and maker of both [the Garden of Eden and the Celestial City] is God (Belz, 3).” It is God who created the beautiful nature and it is also God who created human beings who are maintaining them in various ways.
Belz, Joel. “Vacation Worldview”.World. April, 2007:3.