Good news for the countryside: Caring for God’s creation
Every fortnight people from a farming background, or who have a heart for the countryside in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, offer a personal reflection on faith and rural life. They hope that you will be encouraged by it.
Our countryside, with its fields and tree-filled hedges, has been shaped by farming. I love the variety of landscape, from drumlins and orchards to glens, and how its colours change with the season, especially in summer as cereal fields ripen towards harvest.
Farming is how our food begins its journey to our tables and plates, and so sustains us. For those of us blessed to live in this part of the world, the journey from field to fork has many stages. In other parts of the world, people depend directly on what they grow – or what a neighbour can spare. God’s provision is shared, often with open hands and open hearts.
People in biblical times were similarly much more directly connected with farming and the earth. Jesus’ stories and parables about lost sheep and His referral to Himself as ‘the Good Shepherd’, ‘the True Vine’ and ‘the Bread of Life’, would have been easily understood by His listeners, most of whom would have farmed to a degree. The countryside pictures that Jesus painted means that farmers, even today, 2,000 years later, have a helpful insight into the important points Jesus was making.
Farming is how God provides for us and is affirmed in the earliest chapters of the Bible. In Genesis chapter one, we learn that livestock were amongst the land animals God created on the sixth day (1: 24). In the second chapter, God tells Adam that he is to work and take care of the garden where he had been put (2: 15).
Sadly, this became much more difficult after Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and, as a result, became separated from Him and from each other. The land, too, was affected, with the ground now also producing “thorns and thistles” (Genesis 3:18).
Today, we continue to be separated from God, from each other and from the natural world because of our sin.
But there is good news - just as God created the heavens, the earth, all creatures and us, He also crafted a way for repair, restoration and healing of all these relationships through faith in His son Jesus. We can be forgiven and cleansed of our sin through Jesus’ dying on the cross, so defeating death, and rising again on the third day – if we ask for and receive forgiveness from Him.
God continues to love, care and provide for us and the whole of His creation. His instruction to Adam included taking care of the garden. Human creativity and ingenuity, a reflection of God’s image in us, has made it possible for farming to circumvent the limitations of the soil and extremes of the weather and increase productivity. We all have our part to play, in caring for God’s creation, and being good stewards of it for the generations to come.
In farming the land, and being good stewards of what He has given us, we can be inspired by God’s love and active concern for the whole of His creation. We can seek His guidance and assistance in helping to care for it and enable it to achieve the potential He intended. PCI’s conference on 27 September, ‘God’s world – our responsibility?’ will explore these and other questions and how our responsibility for what we have been blessed with, connects with proclaiming the gospel and loving our neighbour.
This begins with our personal response to the eternal salvation that Jesus gives to all who believe. We can be both good stewards of our hearts and good stewards of His creation.
Worshipping at Knock Presbyterian Church in east Belfast, guest columnist, Ethel White, is a retired crop scientist having worked with AFBI. You can find information on September’s conference at www.presbyterianireland.org/Events
If you would like to talk to someone about any of the issues raised in this article, please email Rev Kenny Hanna, PCI’s Rural Chaplain at [email protected] or call him on 07938 488 372.