Earth Day and dogwood trees in our backyard

On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated in the US. Millions of Americans, including students from thousands of colleges and universities, took part in rallies, marches, and educational programs across the nation. In July of that year, the Environmental Protection Agency was established; Earth Day also led to the passage of the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts.

Whatever you think of the environmental movement, this observance reminds us that “the earth is the Lᴏʀᴅ’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1). Note the second phrase: God owns not just our planet but “those who dwell therein,” whether they know it or not.

A rabbit in the path of a coyote

My wife and I recently planted two dogwood trees in our backyard. We purchased them from a nearby plant nursery, dug holes in the ground, set them in the dirt, fertilized them, and continue to water them. By any legal or logical measure, they belong to us.

But they don’t seem to acknowledge this fact. They did nothing to participate in their purchase, relocation, and planting. If someone were to cut them down or dig them up and transplant them, they wouldn’t respond any differently than they have responded to us. The obvious reason is that they have no agency or cognitive means by which to do so.

Now imagine that they did.

Imagine that our dogwood trees could ignore the fact that we purchased them and planted them in our backyard. Imagine that they could rebel against us, refusing to obey our will for them and even striking at us if they disagree with our purpose for them. Imagine further that they choose to live in the marsh down the way from our house, where their roots will soon rot and die, refusing our wisdom and best desires for them.

Nothing in nature rebels against its own best interests in this way, of course. I’ve never seen a rabbit knowingly place itself in the path of a coyote, or a tree choose to live where it cannot survive. To the contrary, nature is designed in a way that aligns with its flourishing—trees grow toward the sunlight while flowers and bees cooperate to serve each other.

This is because their Designer knows what is best for each, wants what is best for each, and can create a pathway to what is best for each.

His will is just as perfect for my life as it is for our dogwood trees (Romans 12:2). When I seek to be my own God (Genesis 3:5), to replace his omniscience with my finitude and his omnipotence with my frailty, the consequences are not his fault but mine.

Instant gratification and confession without consequences

I know all of this, of course, as do you. Why, then, is human history the story of rebellion far more than of obedience? One factor is the allure of instant gratification amplified by a belief in confession without consequences.

Counselors encourage us to choose what we want most over what we want now. The principle applies to every form of temptation, from sexual immorality to substance abuse to relational conflicts. We can commit the sin and experience the benefits we expect it to provide immediately. The benefits of obedience and delayed gratification obviously take much longer to come, some perhaps not until the next world.

Add the emphasis by many evangelicals on instant confession of our sins so as to avoid their consequences. Non-Catholics usually do not employ a system of confession to priests and penance as assigned. We claim 1 John 1:9 to know that when we confess our sin, God forgives it. We know that he separates our sins from us “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12), buries them in “the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19), and will “remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more” (Hebrews 10:17).

If God forgets every sin we confess, why do we need to remember it, much less pay a price for it? In this view, guilt and remorse are harmful byproducts of grace unclaimed. The more we trust in God’s mercy, the more we should reject any notion of consequences for confessed sins. Or so we think.

Our culture enables instant gratification on a level unknown to history. Movies that we had to see in theaters or rent from Blockbuster are now a click away. The same with music and books. Nearly everything we experience in the world has its digital copy as close as our mobile phone.

The more we combine such gratification with the belief that we can then confess the sins we are tempted to commit without consequence, the more tempting these sins become.

“That is the Spiral Galaxy of Andromeda”

Of course, God forbids what he forbids because doing what he forbids is harmful to his children. Parents won’t let their children play in the street for the same reason our Father wants us to refuse every temptation we face. He knows that the consequences of our sins far outlive any benefits they promise. Even when he forgives and forgets them, their damage to us and others continues and often escalates.

By contrast, Satan tempts us to do what he tempts us to do because what he wants us to do is harmful for us. He cannot attack our Father, so he attacks his children. Because he hates us, he can only want what is damaging to us. Any “positive” benefits of sin must be outweighed by their danger, or his hateful nature will not allow him to offer them to us.

When this spiritual contest begins, you and I have the deciding vote. If we remember that our Father loved us enough to send his Son to our cross to die in our place, and if we add that his loving nature must only want our best, we are more likely to ask his Spirit to empower us to refuse what the Enemy and the world offer us (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:13; James 4:7).

On those good days, we align our lives in this life with God’s purpose for us in eternity. And we use the glory and grandeur of the world our Father made for us to draw us closer to him in grateful faith.

Theodore Roosevelt used to meet with a friend and naturalist named William Beebe for evening conversations. Then the two would go out onto the lawn and search the nighttime sky for a particular constellation.

Roosevelt would note, “That is the Spiral Galaxy of Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one hundred billion suns, each larger than our sun.”

Then he would say to his friend, “Now I think we are small enough. Let’s go to bed.”

Are you “small enough” to go to God today?