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26 CREATION HOPE
degradation of creation on a global scale , we find hope in the promises of the living God who can be known by ‘ the people who live in darkness .’
I have sometimes felt that this kind of ultimate hope is akin to cold iron scaffolding that has been put in place to support a structure that has become , through trauma , injury or suffering , very shaky indeed . In my own case , the shaky structure is my own circumstances , or in the environmental realm , it can be the latest dire report on one of the planetary boundaries 5 of sustainability , apparently breached beyond repair . The knowledge that all this is happening in a world that we apprehend as God ’ s creation , loved and with a future , is never where I would turn for my personal comfort ; it simply isn ’ t relational enough for me to engage with emotionally . But it is where the ultimate hope of believers is found , and perhaps even more so in the biblical imagery which tends to look further below , to rocks on which we can build , or roots of plants and trees , or foundations . For myself , and we are all different , I have simply found that it seems like scaffolding to me to be bound into an unshifting complex structure where one conviction , that we live in a Godbreathed and hand-made world , leads to another , that this God is good and loving . If it were not so , why would there be such beauty and wisdom to
be found in his handiwork along with all the carnage ? The data may look terrifying , and my own experience can be appalling , and yet this hope in what cannot be seen remains to hold me up .
3 Relationship with God
My final and third reason for hope may seem even more bleak , but I believe it is important . Simply put , it is that wherever we land , whether on the territory of despair or the foothills of hope , we have to put them both through the same critical and honest interrogation . Rather as a political commentator can play with an almost infinite number of scenarios , but a politician may have only three choices , none of them ideal , so we have to live in a groaning world and put one foot in front of another , and that demands a direction . And each direction throws up its own questions . So to believe that the world is fundamentally random or cruel is deeply problematic , even if it is problematic in different ways to believing in a good and loving God in a world that is full of suffering and trouble .
My own conclusion is that the difficulties to which that relationship with God gives rise are far fewer and far easier to deal with , both intellectually and experientially , than the difficulties of living a human life in a determinist universe , empty of the presence of God . Bleak hope it may be , but on darker days it is no less solid for that . In the same category , convictions about the purpose that seems to be found in creation and the sketchy outlines of a finally redeemed world , of a life in a completely different Kingdom , can also play a part in taking us forward rather than either raging against the dark , or withdrawing into pietistic passivity . The Kingdom may be not yet , but it is worth working towards and it can reveal itself in surprising places as we wait and work . So let us not be without hope as we hold on for that Day .
1 . https :// livingplanet . panda . org / en-gb
2 . https :// blog . arocha . org / en / extinction-the-facts-arocha-responds-in-hope-action
3 . www . synchronicityearth . org / meet-our-newconservation-director-dr-simon-stuart
4 . www . researchgate . net / publication / 344189799 _ How _ many _ bird _ and _ mammal _ extinctions _ has _ recent _ conservation _ action _ prevented
5 . www . stockholmresilience . org / research / planetaryboundaries . html
Peter Harris
Peter Harris , along with others , founded A Rocha in 1983 . After twelve years leading the organisation in Portugal , he and his wife Miranda pioneered its growth into what is now a family of organisations working on every inhabited continent . He has written the story of A Rocha in two books , Under the Bright Wings and Kingfisher ’ s Fire .
In October 2019 , he was in a terrible road accident in South Africa which claimed Miranda ’ s life and those of A Rocha International ’ s Chief Executive Chris Naylor and his wife Susanna ( Chris ’ book , Postcards from the Middle East is reviewed on page 45 ). Peter is slowly recovering and , following retirement , continues to serve A Rocha in a voluntary capacity .