Prodding

I imagine a perfect world quite differently from anyone I know. So does everyone else on the planet! But the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine imagines a thin one that doesn’t need a great deal of food production, according to The Sun.

“Each fat person is said to be responsible for emitting a tonne more of climate-warming carbon dioxide per year than a thin one.

“The scientists say providing extra grub for them to guzzle adds to carbon emissions that heat up the world, melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and killing rain forests.”

LSHTM’s Dr. Phil Edward said, “It is also much easier to get in your car and pick up a pint of milk than to take a walk.” From my home, the nearest milk vendor is six miles away. With apologies to Dr. Edward, I do not look upon a twelve-mile hike for milk as exercise.

Live Science headlines: Are Fat People Destroying Earth? Their final paragraph, with one word removed: “The big question society now faces — one only breezed by in this week's flap — is whether … people should be prodded into behavioral changes for the greater good,”

That question raises so many others: All people? Who determines which people? Who determines the greater good? Who does the prodding? Who chooses the prodders? How far do prodders go? If people do not respond to prodding, what happens next? Think maybe mankind is going a step or two too far?

As a believer, I understand Christ’s words to mean that this world is not everlasting:

Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. (Luke 21:33 KJV)

Among His words are admonitions to leave care in God’s hands:

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6:31-34 KJV)

Do we live without such cares? Hardly. The next meal, clothing, they do make a difference in our lives. He knows we need them. Follow His will and all these things shall be added unto you. Did you get that? Added. We’ll receive in addition to our basic needs. We’ll receive what He promised:

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. (John 10:10a-11 KJV)