Contemplating Climate Change and Hope

Dear God of Love and Justice,

When the satellite images show another glacier calving into the sea, when the farmers in eastern Kenya watch their third failed harvest in a row, when the coral reefs off Queensland bleach white as bone — it is easy to surrender to despair. But Ephesians 2:14 reminds us that Christ Himself is our shalom, our peace, the One who tears down every dividing wall. And if He can reconcile enemies separated by centuries of hostility, He can surely bridge the chasm between what is and what ought to be.

John Wesley preached that there is no holiness but social holiness — that the sanctified heart cannot rest while creation groans. So move us, Lord, beyond comfortable sympathy. Plant us in community gardens beside neighbors we have never spoken to. Seat us at tables with fishermen whose livelihoods are vanishing and engineers designing cleaner futures. Break down the walls between those who grieve the earth and those who feel powerless to help it.

Give us the stubborn hope of the woman in Senegal who plants mangrove seedlings along a retreating coastline, one tree at a time, because she believes her grandchildren deserve shade. That is resurrection faith — small, persistent, rooted in something deeper than optimism.