What Happens NextSample

There are approximately eight billion people alive today. Scientists also estimate that if you were to add up the number of every single animal on earth—every bird, fish, insect, and other species—the number would be something like twenty quintillion, or twenty billion billion! According to today’s verses, God placed humanity to reign over all of it— “every living creature.” This will be an important idea to remember this week as we consider the end times.

If you are familiar with the story of Adam and Eve, you know humanity struggles to exercise its reign over creation because of sin. When they chose to eat the forbidden fruit, they set humanity on a trajectory that would lead us away from God forever, were it not for his intervention. In the process, we lost our footing with creation. Sin corrupted every relationship, even the relationship between humanity and creation.

In What Happens Next, pastor Max Lucado says that because of sin, “the Lord temporarily suspended his garden-of-Eden plan, but he did not cancel it or forever abandon it.” Lucado reminds us that “God made a covenant promise to Adam and Eve that humanity would one day reign over creation.”

While we wait for that someday, this truth remains: you were designed to reign over what God has created. Today’s passage reveals that God freely gave people the gift and responsibility to care for creation. This includes the full scope of the natural world, from sprawling rainforests to snuggly pets. It also includes the things we forget God created—things found in the subtext of today’s passage—language, relationships, and culture.

What incredible blessings! What incredible gifts! Yet it’s so easy to forget about all God made for us. So, take a moment and praise him for creation. Accept the gift and responsibility to reign with care over all that God made.

Reflection

Think of all the things that God created. What among them do you nurture, cultivate, or protect? How do you “reign” over creation?

What new activity can you do to exercise your reign? Could you do it as an act of grateful worship?

Prayer

Dear God, thank you for giving me such incredible gifts. Thank you for the natural world that sustains me and for the beautiful intricacies of humanity, which is made in your image. Help me to reign over what you made. Equip me to nurture and cultivate what you have given. I thank you and worship you today. Amen.