Emotion Meets Stewardship: Creation

A couple of mornings ago as they were getting ready, I heard Gavin ask Jacob, “Jacob, do penguins walk on their tippy toes?”  He wanted to know if penguins walk on the front or the back of their feet. My kids watch a ton of shows on animals. We read books on animals, use animal references, and even our Halloween jokes are full of animals. My kids are fascinated with God’s creation, specifically animals. (Don’t even get Jacob started on dinosaurs.) When the story of Noah arises in our Read 1 moments, our daily reading of scripture, we talk about all the facts of how the animals survived and existed. Last week we went to Grant’s farm.  During one of the shows we learned that the bald eagle is no longer endangered. This was news to me. That change was a result of many people putting great effort into making sure this part of creation was taken care of.

God’s creation is important. Watching my kids’ fascination with it just reiterates that to me. I truly believe God instills that in them. They grow up with a passion to investigate and learn of God’s creation. Too often as we get older, our enthusiasm for God’s creation grows bleak as we encounter more and more sin in this world. Yet, trusting in Jesus, we believe in God’s restoration of His creation. There is no better way to start the topic of stewardship than by talking about God’s creation, which He allows us to manage.

Through this stewardship series we will be reading the Psalms. The Psalms seem to focus on emotions, which may be confusing at first of how that connects to management and stewardship.  Yet, stirring our emotions is what we want them to do.  We want the Psalms to invoke a child-like emotion that brings back the excitement and enthusiasm to care about, learn about, and love God’s creation.

I pray that this series will be uplifting for you, as we listen to different Psalms and hear that poetic way of managing the blessings we have in life.  May it lead you to ask more questions like how do penguins walk.