Earth: Supersized Home Improvement

“Earth with her ten thousand flow’rs,

Air with all its beams and show’rs,

Heaven’s infinite expanse, Sea’s resplendent countenance –

All around and all above

Bear this record, God Is Love”

– Hymn 87

We live on an amazing planet. In fact, I think we often forget what a gift we have right under our two feet. Unfortunately, our precious gift is in great danger of being destroyed forever. And that’s a problem. We live in a world used to “disposable” products. Everything from diapers to dishwashers. However, what if we “dispose” of our world!? It’s not like we can just run down the street to our local Wal-Mart and pick up a new Earth.

We do realize this…right?

The First Story ever told has to do with the largest contracting job executed in history. It’s the story of one Father’s ultimate home improvement project – Super sized. It was so big, in fact, that it got a blockbuster title; “The Creation“. In the Bible, we have the abridged blueprints. We may read about the genesis of a living, breathing planet!

The project is broken down into Six “days”, or “creative periods” highlighted in the story. We get a small glimpse into the massive amount of planning, preparation, time and energy it must have taken in order to construct such a world. An entire universe, in fact, of Life.

First, Light and Dark were established. Moon, Sun, and stars were added.

Planet Creation

Next came Sea & Land. Rivers, Oceans, Valleys, Mountains, and Deserts

Then He provided Grass, Trees & Flowers…

and Fruit & Vegetables!

But instead of taking a break, (He must have been getting tired by now) He was just getting started! Next came the amazing variety and wonder of the Animal Kingdom.

Finally, He brought forth His crowing acheivement. The greatest masterpiece of all…Human Life.

At the conclusion of this amazing construction project, the Father does something unexpected. He gives it all away. Amazingly, He lovingly entrusts all of these great and mighty works – pure heavenly art – into the mortal hands of His first children, Adam and Eve. Parents-to-be of an entire human race, these important mortals are bequeathed with a powerful birthright to pass down from generation to generation.

However, at this point, the Father gives some very important instructions.

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” ( Gen. 1:28 )

Indeed, the Lord placed mankind as His caretakers for the earth. He said:

“It is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every man accountable, as a steward over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures. I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine. And it is my purpose to provide… for all things are mine” (D&C 104:13-15)

and then, in case we didn’t quite understand our job duties, He spelled them out:

“Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees…” (Rev. 7:3)

“And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree” (Rev. 9:4)

“We” as a collective, have dropped the ball. To say we have taken our stewardship lightly as God’s caretakers would be a gross understatement! Despite His commands, we did hurt the earth, the sea, the grass, the trees, and the “green things”. I don’t think it pushes the imagination envelope to say that we have made our Father in Heaven weep over the destruction of His beautiful gift. How often do we pause to think about this? God didn’t just suggest that we “live green”, or become “weekend environmentalists”. He actually commanded that we take care of His planet! Year-round. He’s the landlord holding the property deed. We are allowed to reside as “groundscrew”. All He asks in exchange for rent are our prudent gardening skills. He even encourages us to eat the harvest and enjoy all the resources. But, instead of showing our gratitude, and being responsible stewards, we’ve trashed the place!

It is easy to play the blame game. However, it becomes a mute point. The bottom line is that we are all to blame, and what matters now is what we are going to do about it from this point forward. What will we do today to stop the madness? What will we choose tomorrow? I believe that we really can make a difference! Each one of us is a creative being, created in the “image of God”, which means that we are capable of coming up with some wonderfully creative ideas on this subject. And many people already have.

A marvelous place to start is viewing Annie Leonard’s “The Story of Stuff” movie. This 20 minute documentary is fun, educational and powerful. I haven’t seen anything in this genre done better. Show it to your children, and talk about it. Share it with your friends and family! This website is also chock full of helpful tips (to get that creative juice flowing) for helping manage our resources wisely. There is plenty of guidance “out there” on what we can do right now, today, to help heal our mother earth.

Let’s supersize our “home improvement” and make Our Father proud!