God Wants Us to Pursue Him In All That We Do
SUJAY NATSON
As a freshman entering Brown , I was lost .
In a school without a core curriculum , it ’ s easy to be overwhelmed by the more than 500 courses I was allowed to take under the open curriculum in the first semester itself , especially when I was deciding what concentrations to pursue and how that decision will play into God ’ s will for my life .
Even though I entered Brown intending to study Physics , I could not resist checking out all the other options it had to offer .
So my first semester at Brown was composed of classes in Physics , Politics , Business and French – I was a freshman who had too many interests and wanted to pursue all of them . I look around at this amazing world that God had created and as a Christian , I just felt the need to understand as much about it as I humanly could .
Each and every one of us has been blessed with gifts and personally , I wanted to make use of them to pursue my interests to the best of my abilities . In a sense , this was the verse that kept guiding me :
And whatsoever ye do , do it heartily , as to the Lord , and not unto men . ( Colossians 3:23 , KJV , emphasis added )
Fast forward to now , as a senior concentrating in Political Science and Geology , I look back and am grateful for how God has worked in guiding me to pursuing the interests I had .
During my junior year , I was talking to my concentration advisor and just listing out the areas where I felt most interested in – politics , law , human rights , geology , space etc . – to get an idea of what kind of career I might want to pursue . While listening , I learned that environmental law existed at the intersection of many of these areas .
Environmental law is an area where both the sciences and the law coincide to make an impact not just the well being of people but also the Earth and all of God ’ s creation . The laws and policies enacted and the actions that follow them have a broad reach that I feel I should care about not only as a human but also as a Christian .
From the beginning of creation :
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it . ( Genesis 1:15 , NIV )
Man was placed on Earth and one of the first tasks God gave us was to care for the environment .
Moreover , in Psalm 24:1 it states , “ The earth is the LORD ’ s , and everything in it , the world , and all who live in it .”
This isn ’ t our world to begin with - we don ’ t own the Earth . The Psalmist states that the Earth belongs to God and we ’ re simply the caretakers .
Just take a look around . The pollution from Man ’ s activities , the destruction to the environment and the many small ( but collectively significant ) activities we partake of on a daily basis , so that we can live a better life , at the cost of the environment - don ’ t do justice to the task God gave us in taking “ care ” of the environment . I , as a Christian , need to do more to protect this Earth , created by our God .
As a student in college , I can only do so much . Yet , when I think of how God can make use of my talents and being blessed with the undeserving privilege I have here at Brown , my heart yearns to do more .
This isn ’ t our world to begin with-we don ’ t own the Earth . The Earth belongs to God and we ’ re simply the caretakers .
With that upon my heart , I enrolled in a class called ‘ Engaged Climate Policy at the UN ’ last semester – working as a researcher on climate change policies . Through the class , I published a report together with my colleagues on how diligent developed countries were in following up on their promises to provide $ 100 billion in climate finance to developing countries . This $ 100 billion is meant to fund the many adaptation projects that are sorely needed in developing countries deeply affected by climate change and are unable to fund themselves .
At the end of the semester , my classmates and I had the unique opportunity to travel to Paris to take part in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC ) Conference of Parties 21 ( COP21 ). While at the conference , I worked with the Union of Concerned Scientists ( UCS ) helping to analyze legal negotiation texts from a scientific perspective and providing briefs that were used to advise negotiators with . The negotiators of different countries and organizations were all discussing on what should and should not be in the final Paris Agreement that will have a broad impact on all parties to the UN - essentially all the UN countries .
This was probably one of the first times where I saw the tangible impact my skills and knowledge acquired over
24 CORNERSTONE Magazine