Earlier this year, I took a swim in the tidal creek behind our house. The sun was shining, the water was cool and calm, and all of nature all around seemed a benevolent radiance of peace and tranquility. Meanwhile, a few hundred miles south, hurricane Irma had devastated the Virgin Islands and Haiti and was barreling down on southern Florida. I wondered: was nature friend or foe? Perhaps it simply was what it was – sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse depending on whether or not we were in the right or wrong place at the critical junctures.

But then there was the deeper story. Mankind had been created to be the regent of creation – the steward, the king, the lord under the lordship of our Maker. The funny thing about all leadership is that the organization follows the way of its leadership. The character of the citizens tracks along with the character of their king. As the head goes, so goes the body. So if mankind rebelled against its Maker and abused and exploited the creation rather than leading and tending it in love, how might the backlash of that work its way out in natural disasters and an uncooperative environment that seems at war with us?

We exploited a tree forbidden to us, we lifted the word of a creature over that of the Creator, and we sought to be what we were not – God. So if we treated our King that way, should it surprise us that the creation mutinies in bloody fashion against its regents? We reap what we have sown. Again and again and again.

If I think about it (and I’m afraid I don’t think about it nearly enough), it makes me long for the return of the King of kings to set things right…. Come, Lord Jesus.