Sooner or later — probably sooner — one of your kids will come home carrying a heavy thought that someone handed them: the planet is dying, and it's our fault.
It happened in our house too. And we noticed that the world really only offers children two postures toward creation, and both of them are wrong. The first treats the earth as a god: something to be worshipped, appeased, and feared, with humanity cast as the villain of the story. The second treats the earth as a garbage can: use it, trash it, who cares. One produces anxious kids; the other produces careless ones.
Scripture offers a third posture the culture almost never mentions — and it changes everything, including your child's anxiety level.
The earth is a trust, not a god
"The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein." — Psalm 24:1
"The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." — Genesis 2:15
Put those two verses side by side with your kids and let them do the math. The earth belongs to God — not to us, and not to itself. And God's first job description for humanity was gardener: work it, keep it, care for it. That's stewardship — taking faithful care of something precious that belongs to Someone else.
Here's the question we use at our table, straight from the magazine's Stewardship pillar: "God gave us the earth to care for. How is that different from worshipping it?" Give your kids a minute. Their answers will surprise you — ours always do.
Why this beats both errors
- Against earth-worship: a steward doesn't panic, because the owner is still in charge. Your child can care deeply about creation without carrying the crushing (and false) weight of saving the planet themselves. Psalm 24:1 is wonderfully calming: it's His.
- Against carelessness: a steward doesn't trash the estate, because the King is coming back and the King pays attention. "It's all going to burn anyway" is not a sentence a faithful gardener says about the garden.
- For the conscience: stewardship gives kids real, doable jobs — tend, mend, plant, don't waste — instead of vague guilt about existing.
Spring is the classroom
We live in Southwestern Ontario, where spring shows up late, muddy, and glorious. It's the single best season to teach this pillar, because the lesson is happening in your backyard for free:
- Plant something together. A tomato in a bucket counts. Let each kid own a plant — watering it is stewardship in miniature: faithful care of a living thing they didn't create and can't force to grow.
- Take a "keeper's walk." Walk your street or a trail with a garbage bag. You're not saving the planet; you're keeping your corner of the garden. The difference is the whole theology.
- Trace the food. At dinner, pick one item and follow it backward — farm, soil, rain, sun — until you arrive at God. Then thank Him for the supply chain. Kids love this game more than you'd expect.
When the heavy thought comes home
So when your child repeats the world's script — "the planet is dying and it's our fault" — you don't have to argue, mock, or panic. You can sort it together, the same way we sort every claim in this family: What part of that is fact? What part is opinion or fear? And what does God's Word actually say about the earth and our job on it?
Anxious worship and lazy neglect are both off the table. What's left is the oldest job in the world: tend the garden, and honour the Gardener's God.
— Alex & Marisol