It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon and my room temperature reading was at 30C. In the past years during this time of the month, it seems to be the coolest time of the season because of the melting snow from the other parts of the world but I heard in the news the other day that summer time is setting in very early this year. In other countries, excessive snow, torrential rain and flash flood has been the latest news while in the local scene, water shortage due to El Nino phenomenon has been the concern this very hour. It was only some months ago when the country suffered from flash flood and now we must brace ourselves for another imminent possibility of calamitous event.
A lot has been said about this changing weather pattern and most studies point to global warming as the reason for this. Many great plans have already been under discussion, relevant laws have already been enacted and then WHAT? Is there really a way for us to stop or reverse the condition that our planet has been going through? I guess the answer lies in these simple passages…
What have we done?
"I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination." (Jeremiah 2:7)
"Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?" (Ezekiel 34:17-18)
What happens if we never stop defiling the land?
"Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land. The LORD almighty has declared in my hearing: 'Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants. A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine, a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.'" (Isaiah 5:8-10)
"The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the heavens languish together with the earth. The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth; its inhabitants suffer for their guilt." (Isaiah 24:4-6)
"You have polluted the land with your whoring and wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not come." (Jeremiah 3:2-3)
"He turned rivers into a desert, flowing springs into thirsty ground, and fruitful land into a salt waste, because of the wickedness of those who lived there." (Psalm 107:33-34)
What can we do now?
"'The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.” (Leviticus 25:23-24)
"When you are attacking a town and the war drags on, you must not cut down the trees with your axes. You may eat the fruit, but do not cut down the trees. Are the trees your enemies, that you should attack them?" (Deuteronomy 20:19)
"The land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and garner their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the Lord.... The land is to have a year of rest." (Leviticus 25:2-5)
"If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit." (Leviticus 26:3-4)
Maybe just a while ago you tended your crop in your Farmville, but when was the last time you cared to cultivate a piece of real land for a tree or a plant? Or should we just wait for this earth to become like this?
"It will be made a wasteland, parched and desolate before me; the whole land will be laid waste because there is no one who cares." (Jeremiah 12:11)
The time and the chance is still in our hands, let us not wait until there is no more hope left for us.
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