THAT FATAL POWER

You made them rulers
over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:

Psalm 8:6 (read 8:1-9) - NIV

We are the greatest! There are none better than us except God, if there is one. We have occupied all the earth, and we even landed on the moon! We control everything and destroy everything that displeases us. We discovered the secrets of the atom and the DNA. With this knowledge, we manipulate genes and modify the fauna and flora so they can serve us better. We build nuclear weapons capable of destroying any enemy. We have changed the face of the earth, turning forests into productive fields and wildernesses into cities.

The psalmist viewed the universe and human beings differently. He looked with humility and gratitude for having been given the privilege of occupying a space in this great creation. He recognized that, even with all of our might, we are nothing.

The "civilized" world has lost the Psalmist's vision. It has lost the sense of wonder at the greatness and beauty of creation. It does not realize that, with its technology, humanity is becoming like a plague of locusts, consuming everything and heading for self-destruction.

Since the beginning of the written history of "civilization", humanity chose to dominate and to conquer rather than to care for and to protect. Competition speaks louder than solidarity. Its story is a series of rises and falls of empires, each worse than the former. The human being is constantly accumulating knowledge and technology and increasing its frighteningly destructive power. Now it has the ability to destroy the ecological system in a few hours simply by releasing a small percentage of nuclear bombs that it has stored for its "protection". Its production and consumption scheme is strangling the ecological system, eliminating thousands of species of fauna and flora at an increasingly rapid pace. It has become the most devastating force since the disaster 65 million years ago that killed the dinosaurs along with more than 80% of life on the planet. If there is no radical turning back in the direction that humanity is heading, in a few decades the earth's as it is known today will be destroyed.

We are the only species with this terrible power. This power is being used for destruction more than for caring. We are repeating the feat the story of Adam and Eve when they were able to put an end their garden of paradise. But they had where to go while we will not!

It may already be too late to reverse the self-destructive process. The hope of mankind is to change its direction (repent): to put caring in the place of achievement, to put community above empire and to share rather than to accumulate. The Spirit of God gives power to care for rather than to take away, to contribute to rather than to exploit and to BE rather than to POSSESS. The psalmist had this spirit. He did not consider himself to be the owner but rather a caretaker. Greatness was in the Creator, not in the creature. Power becomes terrible and destructive when we use it to dominate and to control in favor of ourselves. Self-aggrandizement leads to self-destruction

PSALM 8:1-9 – NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV)

Lord, our Lord,

    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory

    in the heavens.

Through the praise of children and infants

    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,

    to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens,

    the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

    which you have set in place,

what is mankind that you are mindful of them,

    human beings that you care for them?

You have made them a little lower than the angels

    and crowned them with glory and honor.

You made them rulers over the works of your hands;

    you put everything under their feet:

all flocks and herds,

    and the animals of the wild,

the birds in the sky,

    and the fish in the sea,

    all that swim the paths of the seas.

Lord, our Lord,

    how majestic is your name in all the earth!