Choose Life

The Pope's emissary to the COP28 Summit delivered the Pope's message on his behalf. A clear and simple part of that message was: "Choose Life".

The Pope was calling on the global community to make decisions, enact promises and adopt everyday ways of living that responded to the global climate disaster that we are all facing. His call was not unique of course - many others have been making similar calls for quite some time.

The phrase 'Choose Life' is an invitation from God. In Deuteronomy 30 God invites the people to stick with Him, follow in His ways, live and flourish ... but His ways did not ultimately mean to live at the expense of others or the planet!

Interestingly the chapter in Deuteronomy couches it as a simple binary choice: Choose life and all will go well, or choose differently and surely end up in destruction. That's the same simple choice the human population is (and has been) facing with the climate crisis! The Pope's choice of this ancient chapter deep from (the people) Israel's formational years resonates clearly with the heart-cry of many activists - including many young people - today. For sure many today may simply be crying 'Choose Life' from a largely secular worldview, blissfully unaware of the scriptures. Scientists may be calling the same from an "It's obvious from the data" viewpoint. Still others perhaps from a humanist basis ... but they all see a fundamental choice: life beyond ourselves or self-destruction. A growing collective voice rising up against the Goliath of never ending selfish consumerism!

Now read back in the same chapter to the beginning of the (sub)section: verse 11 onwards. God tells them: "What I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach". It explains that the solution is not beyond reach in the heights or the depths ... it is near, in fact already within the people who were open and willing. God has already given all that we may need to not only say 'Choose Life', but follow through with it. To choose life is to join the mission purpose of God, and He pre-activated the resources we need to get on and get the job done way way back.

What will we do? What will we choose?