Ok, I have a bunch of thoughts going through my head right now. I’m going to bring up several things that at first may not seem to be connected but stay with me. 1) I can’t stand it when I’m at the gym and some guy at the sink is running the faucet full blast the entire time he’s shaving, oblivious to the fact that water is a precious commodity. 1 in 4 people around the world do not have clean drinking water and by 2025 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity.

 2) Last week I went to the community dump with a pickup truck full of trash, scrap wood an old TV and some furniture. Cars and trucks were lined up 40 deep waiting to get rid of stuff.  I watched as ton after ton of stuff was being dumped into containers eventually heading to a landfill. And that was just my small community. 3) Self-storage facilities are a 43 billion dollar a year industry.  Nearly 60,000 storage unit facilities are in the U.S. and 38% of Americans use self-storage units. We seem obsessed with accumulating more stuff than ever before. 4) Every year 119 billion pounds of food is wasted in the U.S. which equates to 130 billion meals. Nearly 40% of all food in America is wasted, and globally we throw out 1.3 billion tons of food a year!

 What’s all this have to do with life balance and well-being? – plenty! I’m not here to discuss melting glaciers or global warming.  But I do think as God’s stewards we need to be much more mindful of our surroundings. It seems to me most believers treat this as a political issue rather than a social and moral one.

A blatant disregard for our environment and squandering of resources combined with a cavalier attitude toward things like food, water, and resources does not honor the Lord who called us to be a steward of all He has made and entrusted to us.

Don’t allow politics to drive the agenda when it comes to environmental issues or social matters such as providing food and clean water for all people. Perhaps it’s time to evaluate our own attitudes and consumption habits. Personally, I’m examining how much I waste and the amount of waste I produce. This has me thinking, how can I better practice conscious consumption and conservation? How about you? The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness of it, the world, and those who dwell in it.

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