Striking A Balance

I just finished reading a book this week that really challenged me. The book is titled Planted: A Story of Creation, Calling, and Community which tells the story of the author (Leah Kostamo), her husband, and their adventure in starting and running a Christian conservation community.

I will say that the author does a wonderful job of storytelling. I found myself engaged in the struggles, weeping for their loses and chuckling at the oddities that life has thrown their way. However, more importantly; the book really made me think.

For years I have found myself in a bit of an internal transition. As I would read Scripture, the Genesis account of creation, the stewardship of humans in the Garden, the story of Noah and the ark, and prophetic references to the promise of a restored Earth I was struck by the role that Creation played in the story woven through the pages of the Bible. As I would enjoy a warm sunny day with my sons or meditate on the beauty of a wildflower defying urbanization by pushing up between the cracks in a sidewalk I would feel a tug deep down to claim my birthright as an Image-barer of the Creator.

I don't know if it was this shift that lead Heather and I into more a more natural approach to life or the natural approach to life that fed this internal change, but there has been a change in the way I view our biome.

I have take a more active approach toward recycling and reducing the amount of waste I produce directly and indirectly. I have even tried my hand at gardening a few times (though I found that my once-green-thumb does not seem to work as well in Florida). So I started reading Planted thinking almost subconsciously that I was going to be able to pat myself on the back for all the good I do. But as I got further and further into the book I found myself almost resenting Leah and her oh so environmentally friendly self.

I was confronted by pride; by how my egocentric view had blinded me to how little I was actually doing in the grand scheme of caring for the whole Earth. Thankfully, as I neared the end of the book I was given a quote that helped put everything in balance.

In the last chapter of the book Leah writes of her own challenge in feeling that her efforts were so small and the words of wisdom that her husband spoke in moment of her frustration.

Calmly, he responded, "We are going to do what is right. We aren't going to save the world, Leah. We are going to do what is right."

It was almost as if the author knew exactly what was going on in my head and my heart as I neared the end of the book and strategically placed those words for my mind to tell my heart.

I don't have to save the whole world. I don't have to reduce my carbon footprint to third world level or eat only food that I grow or kill myself. All I really need to focus on is doing right. I can be free to strike a balance between where I have been and where I feel God leading me.

What does that look like? I don't have specifics now, but I can share them as I find them along the way.