The Virtue Driven Life by Benedict J. Groeschel

Author:Benedict J. Groeschel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-03-31T08:20:00+00:00

The Abuse of Nature

WE ABUSE MANY THINGS in our society, including the environment. The environmentalists are right. We cause a lot of damage with pesticides and chemical fertilizers. We often would do better to leave nature alone, but we exploit it in order to indulge our intemperance. Far from using the things of the earth abstemiously, we have a tradition of wasting things.

We Americans have too much, and we are not particularly good stewards of what we have.

At a testimonial dinner I once attended, a great deal of food was wasted, including fresh salmon, which is very expensive and very healthful. I eat salmon as often as possible because of the benefits for my heart. I am aware, however, that nature has expended much to produce this elegant dish, and that the salmon has traveled thousands of miles in the sea just to get to my plate. We Americans waste a lot of food, and the virtue of temperance reminds us to be aware of how we use, or abuse, food, which is a gift from God.

We Americans have too much, and we are not particularly good stewards of what we have. We have forgotten, both on a natural level and especially on a supernatural level, that everything should be used for the kingdom of God.

Alexis de Tocqueville, famous for his nineteenth-century observations on the United States, wondered what Americans would do with all the material things with which they were blessed. "What will you do with these things?" he asked. In those days, half the United States was virgin forest. There were vast deposits of minerals that no one had ever touched. What have we done with these things? We have too much, and we don't put it to good use. We should all look at the things in our lives and see whether there is excess.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.