Greed for bigness is killing us!

INSIGNIFICANT MAN CAN BE SIGNIFICANT.

In a resent gathering, we watched a movie where a minister stressed the greatness and enormity of God, via astrology and God’s interest in our planet, and then in tinny insignificant man. It was breathtaking. Two texts reminded us of the vastness between the creator and the tinny creature man. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). In contrast to the heavens, “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:4).

In relationship to the vastness of our milky way alone, our earth is but a dot. It is actually located at the outskirts of our planetary system. It is somewhat sheltered from the fiery furnace of the sun. Placed there by our Creator to sustain a tiny creature that would resemble the Creator. The Bible tells us that man was in God’s mind before He made this world (John 17:24; Ephesians 1:4). This little creature was God’s special project (Genesis 1:26-30). The world is actually a gift of God to man and it is God that depends on insignificant man to manage it. It is inconceivable; nevertheless, a fact that in spite of His Greatness, God needs a man to cut a blade of grass. God needs a man, with intelligence, to manage orderly and constructively the earth. Man is to be in charge of nature and not nature in charge of man. Man was placed here for the upkeep and not for the exploitation.

I was brought up in a tradition where my actions and deeds reflect what I am. It is similar to what Jesus said, “We would be known by our fruits” (Matthew 6:16). One of the things is to maintain what has been placed in our trust (Luke 16:10). For instance, it is not likely that the present economy will allow us to keep our home. In spite of it, we borrowed funds and replaced the roof. Also, we keep up the yard. We have a constant struggle with ivy and weeds. Ivy, if it is left alone, will kill anything in its way. It will crumble buildings and destroy vegetation. We do have a tree that fell after it was wrapped in ivy and sapped off its energy. It is dead now and leaning against another tree. We cut the ivy from doing further damage to the tree it is leaning on. What is my point? There are two reasons. The maintenance of the property says something about us who live here. The other thing is that nature does not maintain itself. It requires an intelligent hand to keep it in check. Yes, the Lord gave us a garden; but, He commands us to take care of it.

God is great, only He put man in the world to prove it. Man is not hapless or helpless. All the other creatures are not accountable to God, but to man. And man alone shall be held accountable, not just for himself, but also for the earth and for all the other creatures. Here is the shocking truth. Man cannot be redeemed, without redeeming the world. It is not just man that yearns for salvation; but so is all of nature (Romans 8:20-21). When man disobeyed God, he took his sin with him and polluted the world. It is man that applies the rule of good or evil. The absence of goodness in the world is evidence that man is straying from the purpose for which he was created. He, and not God, is turning the world into what it is. When Jesus spoke of “God so loved the world,” He did not just mean man, but the whole planet earth (John 3:16). God made everything good and He expects man to keep it so. Just as man is an “Image of the Creator,” so is the world is an image of man’s handiwork.

That, in essence, is our human dilemma. We have allowed evil to manage us and we, in turn, are exploiting, rather than managing the earth. We have become scavengers, instead of being stewards. We want more for ourselves than nature allows. In Eastern Poland, which now is part of the Ukraine, our neighbors with a larger family than ours managed to live on five acres. We had twenty acres and a blacksmith shop and could barely make it. We took on more than we could handle all because we competed with greed. A client of our father was a Pan (a Sir or Lord) he had a number of properties that were larger than a county. He could force people to work for him. Like the rich fool, he lost it all to the equalizers of wealth, and so did we (Luke 12:13-21). The same is happening in the so-called progressive world of ours. We are loosing what we acquired because we no longer have the income to keep it. Now, we are compounding the problem by demanding that someone else manage for us. We have demoted ourselves into servitude. Thus, we have become even less than being insignificant. It was not God’s doing, but entirely ours.

We should wonder why God, who is so immense, entrusted the world to one so small. The same rule applies to our governing authorities. A government cannot do, what individuals can. Like God, it has to get out of the way, so that individuals can do what they were endowed with by their Creator to do; namely, care for themselves and their loves ones. Bigness is not better. It has proven to be worse. Remember when this country flourished with small businesses and small farms. Look what big business, big farms and big government are doing. They have created unemployment, welfare and food stamps. If God got out of the way so that man could prove himself, why can bigness not see that it too should get out of the way for the very sake that man can survive? It is the greed for bigness that is killing us!